Tianjin, China - March 1

 10 degrees, sunny

Tianjin is the Chinese port for Beijing. We had to choose to either see Beijing or the Great Wall – we chose the Wall.

When we booked this cruise so many months ago we also booked an excursion that was to take us off of the ship for a few days, fly to see the Terracotta Soldiers, the Great Wall and also Beijing. This was unfortunately cancelled due to an itinerary change. We were and still are a bit disappointed. We figured that being in Beijing someday would be likely and getting to the Wall is a bit of a production, hence…we saw the Wall.

It was a very long day with a lot of driving and way too much time spent in the passport line, but what we saw was fantastic. The part of the wall at Huangyaguan is in a remote part of northern China, but that is close to the port – still 2.5 hours. The cruise tours and a few other visitors are the only ones at the Wall – this is great. This part of the Wall is on a steep mountain ridge. Climbing it was a bit of challenge and we certainly didn’t climb all that there was to climb at the Huangyaguan part. We spent about an hour climbing up and then down. It was the perfect day for this – clear and cool. I can only imagine what it would be like on a hot day…I am thrilled to be here at this time of the year.

see how steep the steps are

Along our hike, we passed through watch towers. Some of the wall was a steep incline, some were shallow steps and some were very steep. As usual, coming down was harder than going up.

After our visit to the Wall we had a traditional Chinese lunch at a local restaurant, although described as traditional, it was very accessible and very good. The lunch was also HUGE. It was served family style and just when we all thought the food was finished, out came some more, and then more. The return to the ship was another 2 hours on the bus.

apricot seed??

All in all, it was an 11 hour day (2 of these due to Chinese immigration) for an hour at the Wall and an hour at lunch, but we didn’t regret a minute – thankfully and I’ll say it again…the weather was fantastic! I wouldn’t do it again, but I’m glad I did it.

Another interesting thing that happened was I tried what I think are called apricot nuts – I googled apricot nuts and didn’t get what I tried, so if anyone knows what these are please let me know. They were like a large, hard bean pod. You peeled the outer shell off and ate the fruit around a small inner very hard seed. The fruit was like dried fruit, very sweet, chewy and dry-ish.