Windburnt on the Great Wall

My Saturday in Beijing, 8 of us hired a tour guide. We went to the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, a jade factory, a copper-something-pretty-stuff factory, a silk factory, and a tea place.

The advice people gave me about visiting China (wear masks and avoid pickpockets) was not very necessary. The pollution was noticeable but not apocalyptic. People on the street seemed to wear them more for warmth than for health. Avoiding pickpockets at the Forbidden City was trivial, as the bitterly cold weather meant we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We were told this was Beijing's coldest winter in 30 years, and that Saturday when we were outside playing tourist was supposed to be the coldest day. I didn't pack gloves, but I did, thankfully, pack a ski mask. I got a pair of North Fakes^TM gloves for ¥20 ($3) on the street that did an okay job for the rest of the day.

The tour guide gave us a lot of facts about the Forbidden City. He wanted us to guess how many rooms there were in the Forbidden City (9,999. Nine is a lucky number). With the same enthusiasm, he asked us to guess how many concubines the emperor would have. The Forbidden City is a very large moated area. Concubines would live just outside the walls. Houses that were aligned with the north/south axis of the city would bring good luck to the inhabitants, and concubines would live there. After several large concubine count guesses from the group and Kevin (our guide) responding "more" or "less," I offered, "Zero! The emperor loved his wife very much."

I got pretty windburnt on the Great Wall. Although the temperature was colder there than it was at the Forbidden City, we were at a section that was pretty much just stairs straight up the mountain. My FitBit said I had something like 275 floors for the day (and 20,000 steps). Two others and I reached the top. The other five didn't get quite so high and patiently sipped coffee, awaiting our return. I noticed the coffee shop advertised an "American Latte." I imagine that was to properly set expectations for Italian tourists. The Great Wall had a great amount of graffiti on it. I was embarrassed to see English graffiti, even though it was alongside Chinese, Russian, and several other languages. It's just not classy. Graffiti your own country, filthy tourists! The mountains near the Great Wall rise more steeply than the Cascades. The Wall was a great way to climb up and get a good view of the surroundings. It also made the pollution situation clear. The temperatures were just a few degrees above zero (booger-freezing) and the humidity was maybe 10-20%, but towards the city it still looked foggy and slightly yellowish. That is smog, and it's sad. One of our Beijing contacts told us most masks are placebos and thinks within about 20 years they should be able to clean it up. I hope he's right and I agree with him. On the plus side, I made it up the Great Wall without breaking a sweat.