Great Wall: 15 Towers Hike
posted by Paul Brockmann at 03:42
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Sunday, March 26, 2006
Hiking the Great Wall
Some of my friends seemed to think posting shots of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City as my last entry before going on my seven-week vacation was a bit too predicable (you know who you are, Gary), so I've decided to speed the posting of these shots I took on a wonderful Great Wall hike yesterday. The Great Wall stretches from Shanhaiguan on the Yellow Sea northeast of Beijing, to Jiayuguan in Gansu on the edge of the Tarim basin, 2700 kilometers to the west. The earliest sections (not near Beijing, I think) date from the Warring States Period, between 481 and 221 BC. The wall as we know it today was fully restored and re-built or built in the early 1400s, the early Ming period when Beijing was the new capital of the empire.
Around Beijing are many restored sections of the wall, where authorities
have fully and carefully restored extended sections so that tourists can
come and visit and get a sense of what the wall was at its height. All the
tourist and travel brochure shots you'll see are most likely taken at one of
these sections, like Badaling, Simatai, Jinshanling or Mutianyu. True confession: I've not yet been to any of those sections. I've only done hikes like this, either around or on top of some of the older and more decrepit sections. Some time I'm sure I'll go to one of the big-name sections, but for now I love the wall as I know it, crumbling and atmospheric, running along the ridgeline in the steep, rocky hills around Beijing.
A few notes on the next three shots: one is shown through a cherry tree, just to note that spring is finally slowly arriving in Beijing, and hills may be a touch less brown and gray in the next few weeks; another shows a crumbling tower on a rise, with a clear section of wall on a ridgeline in
the hazy background: that's the restored Mutianyu section, and there's another view of it with an explanation just afterwards. The other shot you have to look at fairly closely, to see the nubs of the towers along the ridgeline. Note that the wall seems always to follow the ridgeline, for good defensive reasons. This hike is called the 15 towers hike, because we pass 15 old watchtowers on our hike along the wall.
posted by Paul Brockmann at 03:42
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Looking at Mutianyu Section
Here we are looking across the valley at Mutianyu, one of the wall sections near Beijing that has been fully restored and is now a major tourist
attraction with chair lifts to help people get up to the wall and back down. If you look closely, you can clearly see how much more defined the wall is there than in the more decrepit sections we were hiking.
posted by Paul Brockmann at 03:33
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Wall Towers & Development
One thing Beijing has in common with my former home of Southern California
is the increasing presence of McMansion developments further and further out from the city core. Just about every place I've been in the hills and outskirts of Beijing has more and more development of weekend houses and McMansions. This shot looks down over the first two towers we passed on our hike, at the little town where we started: see the buildings under construction.
posted by Paul Brockmann at 03:17
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Sunday, March 19, 2006
Tiananmen - Gate of Heavenly Peace
These will almost certainly be my last posts before leaving Beijing for my seven week home leave. For those of you who don't know, I've renewed my commitment with MSF and will be back in Beijing at the end of May, to stay through the end of the year more or less. But first I get to visit family and friends for about seven weeks in the US and Europe. Today, as it happens, is exactly the end of my first year formally with MSF; though I
began my training with them on February 27 last year, I wasn't assigned to a posting until March 20th. So today completes a cycle, and tomorrow begins a new year of my MSF history. In my mind, my "first mission" lasts until I fly home for vacation, and when I return at the end of May it'll be a bit like starting a second mission - a shorter one in which, hopefully, to complete and fine-tune some of what I've not gotten to so far!
In any case, I've been remiss since the massive postings at the end of January. Much has happened since then: visits from various folks from Paris HQ, including two counterparts for me (my logistics and financial supervisors, respectively), two trips to our Nanning AIDS project, one to our Baoji Children's Center, and two to Seoul. Ouch, no wonder I've not had much time to post on the blog! Plus, I've just been busy at work (budget revision prep, shepherding visitors around and explaining what we do and why and how, plus learning through them better how to do my own job, and so on).
In any case, I did use the Paris visitors as excuses to finally visit some of the big sites I've been leaving for the right time, even as my visitors have come and seen some of the most famous sites without me! So herewith are a few shots of the biggies: Tiananmen Square (or parts of it, looking toward Tiananmen Gate), and then quite a few of the Forbidden City itself, which of
course is behind Tiananmen, that being the most important entrance to the palace. Seems appropriate to post these for you just at the end of my first year here: I think of Connie and Anne, who I know will visit in May, and of Mom who I certainly hope follows through on her threat to join me in August. You'll find this all even more beautiful and impressive in person, as Steve did.
I was planning to wax a bit poetic in this posting, about what an amazing year it's been and how it hardly feels like a year, even though it's more than a year that I've now been away from the US; about how I truly begin to feel like a citizen of the world, especially now that I have some real friends here in Beijing - and most not from the US, but from England, Australia and France, and how though I long to see my friends and family, I'm still not quite ready for the US again. It seems such an odd place, viewed from where I am now. A country that's allowed its government, civil rights and public dialogue to be hijacked by greedy self-serving liars who've fed the public's irrational fear of terrorism, further blinding its citizens to the reality that lack of opportunity, lack of health care, lack of medications for malaria and tuberculosis and AIDS kill far more people in the world - by geometric progessional factors - than terrorism...and to the
fact that true security will never rest on the backs of military power that exists more to feather the pockets of the rich than to serve true needs of the people in the US or anywhere else (let's not even TALK about the needs of the people of Iraq about whom they spoke with such hypocritical fervor before their ill-conceived and disastrous adventure there). Mmm, guess I did
wax poetic after all, but I was thinking along more personal lines. Trying to say that this life works for me: I get to feel like I'm actually doing something, and while we're all happy to say we didn't vote for that blood-soaked cabal that's got their hands tight around the national purse-strings in Washington, I get to add that I'm doing a wee bit to try to redress the balance, and I love sitting by the sidelines as the republicans come up with further lies to boggle the minds of a far-too-gullible and ready-to-be-scared American public. I get to say I not only didn't vote for him, but really can't see living in that insane country again as long as those lunatics are ruling the roost...
But there I go again. What I meant to say is: it's been a tremendous year. Support from my friends and family in the US and around the world have made all the difference. Please keep me in your hearts, even as my years away lengthen, which they're bound to do: I've found a world of wonder and mystery, and good work that needs doing. Right now that seems more important
than anything that I could do or accomplish in the US. I look forward to seeing as many of you as I can during April and May, and I wish you a successful and happy year of the dog. Do what you can, in your way, in your space, to bring a bit more light into the world and to balance the sorry state of fear and mistrust in the world. Thanks. :-)
posted by Paul Brockmann at 13:11
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Skaters @ Qianhai
With the Drum Tower in the background. With spring already mostly sprung here in Beijing - though not leaves are out, there's no ice on the rivers or lakes any more - it's hard to remember how frozen solid everything was barely a month ago, but here's a memory of how much fun Qianhai and Houhai can be in the winter, despite the cold. Brings memories of sitting by the
wood fire in my favorite cafe with some of my new friends or MSF colleagues
and watching the myriad variations on "things to move about the ice on" that
Beijing can come up with. Note how few actual skaters you see -- it's all skate-adapted chairs, bicycles, you name it.
posted by Paul Brockmann at 12:34
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Lantern Festival Day @ Ditan Park
The fifteenth day of the Chinese New Year is lantern festival, and it was on
that day that my colleague (and financial supervisor) from Paris and I chose to visit the park. I think that's why there's so much incense burning...
posted by Paul Brockmann at 12:31
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Visits to Seoul
OK, I'm doing it again: putting things out of order on my blog. It's Sunday,
the 19th of March here in Beijing and I've returned this afternoon from my
second visit to Seoul in the past month. MSF has an office there where we've provided psychological support for refugees from North Korea. Since the situation has changed a great deal since we first started this work, MSF has
decided to close this office and leave local actors to serve the needs of this population in the future. Due to the luck of the draw, it's fallen to our office to manage the last several weeks of this office until we close it, and especially to me as administrator to manage all the legal and HR
aspects of shutting down our office. The downside, of course, is more work for me just as I prepare for my blessed seven week holiday in the US and Europe...the upside, of course, is a chance to meet some great colleagues (two of our four national staff colleagues there have applied to become MSF expats in the field in the future, and the one expatriate still working there, a psychologist from Italy, is a pleasure to know and work with) and get to know another city and another office a bit.
This last visit was a week long, so I could really make a lot of headway on what needed to be done. I added a Sunday at the beginning and a Saturday at the end so I could explore the city a bit: I've not been since I visited it during my Jr. year abroad, back in 1984. Naturally, it's changed a great deal since then. Here's a good shot taken from atop Namsan, next door to the huge US military base and site of Seoul Tower, one of the major landmarks in town (I assume it's a TV broadcast tower, but I dont' really know -- it looks like it), but I didn't think to take any pictures of it, itself - just shots from its hilltop. Sorry. Enjoy!
posted by Paul Brockmann at 12:26
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Bukhansan National Park, Seoul
I was fortunate to have a free Saturday in Seoul to do a bit of exploring. Though my Beijing colleagues and friends kept telling me how lovely Beijing was -- high teens or even 20 degrees, sunny -- I'm afraid to say Seoul was quite cold -- at or below freezing most of the time, and my Italian psychologist colleague seemed to take a perverse pleasure in reminding me that the cold winds in Seoul are coming down from Siberia. They felt like it. Yet despite the cold grey weather, it was a pleasure to escape to Bukhansan National Park, an area in northern Seoul amply blessed with imposing granite peaks (at 700 to 800 meters high, above a city that's pretty much at sea level) and wonderful hiking trails. The park has some historical significance, both in terms of defense of the capital from various invaders over the centuries, and for all the religious temples that are scattered over the mountains. I thought of my good friend Steve's comment from one of my Beijing hike shots, about how the temples perched on the ridgetops and hillsides were quite lovely. Here are some shots that give you a sense of the park, including a few with temple shots.
posted by Paul Brockmann at 12:17
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Bukhansan National Park, Seoul
These next are basically three miscellaneous images that give another side
of my experience. The (bad, sorry) photo of me grinning is trying to show how amazingly steep were the trails I was on: the metal ropes you see are basically there either so you can rappel down (in my case) or haul yourself
up (if you were going the other direction). It was tremendously fun and made me wish I had my climbing shoes instead of running sneakers! The little bird was remarkably friendly and unafraid of me: I couldn't decide whether it felt like Bilbo in the Hobbit, where the thrush (or whatever it was) helped him get into the back entrance to the Lonely Mountain, or something out of
Hitchcock's Birds...but this guy was so little and cute, and cheeped at me like he wanted to talk, so I took it as a sign of nature's bounty. The hazy shot of the city shows you how this park sits literally above the northern parts of Seoul. Sadly, it was pretty gray - it cleared up today, when I flew home...
posted by Paul Brockmann at 12:07
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About Me
- Name: Paul Brockmann
- Location: World Traveler, Where I Am
Gave away most of my earthly possessions, opted out of the US consumer lifestyle, been living as an international humanitarian worker. I alternate between extended field assignments with MSF, Medecins sans Frontieres (aka doctors without borders), and down time visiting friend and family the US and around the world. Drop a note if you feel so inclined: generous and helpful comments are always welcome. Peace.
Links
- MSF International Site
- MSF USA Site
- Hello-Ondrej
- Howard Rubin's Pacific Wheel
- Oberlin Shansi Website
- Unitarian Universalist Association
Previous Posts
- Change of Address
- India's Tip - Kanyakumari & Padmanabaphuram
- Views of Two Varkalas
- Cruising Kerala's Backwaters
- Arriving in Kochi
- Little Things
- Udaipur: Palaces by the Lake
- Welcome to Jaisalmer: Havelis & A Golden Fort
- Kumbalgarh: The Camel's Swish
- Marvelous Mehrengarh & The Blue City
Archives
- February 2005
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