September 9 (Thursday): Mutianyu Great Wall (慕田峪長城) & Ding Ling (定堎)

At 09:30 our hired car started for the Mutianyu Great Wall (慕田峪) which winds along lofty, cragged mountains from the southeast to the northwest for approximately 2.25 kilometers (about 1.3 miles). It is connected with Juyongguan Pass (居庸關) to the west and Gubeikou (古北口) to the east. The one I’d visited 30 years ago is Dadaling (八達嶺) which is much more crowded. Personally I prefer Mutianyu. It took nearly two-hour car journey to the Wall, partly due to the eternal traffic jam. There’re two cable car stations and we took the one taking us to the Watch Tower 14. We spent about two hours hiking between Tower 18 and 8, quite tiring considering me carrying nearly seven kg of photo equipment. Though perhaps not as exhausting as the bride who scaled the Wall in her full bridal garment and high heel platform shoes (photos 22 & 23)! I did come across many newly wedded in other tourist spots e.g. Heavenly Temple, The Olympic Green and Qingdao (The Olympic Sailing Center, Ba Da Guan 八大關 and the beach).

About 14:30 we headed for the Ming Tombs (明十三堎). We visited only the largest one, the Ding Ling (定堎) or "Tomb of Stability" as I did 30 years ago and the "Spirit Way" (Shen dao 神道).

In the evening our daughter treated us to dinner at Made-In-China (長江一號) @ the Grand Hyatt. Our main disc is Beggar Chicken which you’ve to pre-order a day in advance. The food is good and the setting trendy but expensive though.

Camera Equipment:
Camera: Nikon D3 & F6 plus Panasonic LX3
Lens: AFS 17-35/f2.8 (mostly on F6) and AFS 70-200/f2.8 (D3)
Singh-Ray Filters: i) Gold N Blue Polarizer, ii) LB Color Combo Polarizer, iii) Daryl Benson ND-3 Reverse Graduate and iv) Galen Rowell ND-3G Hard Step.
Film (for F6): 8 rolls of Kodak Ektar and 1 roll of Fujicolor – all 100 ISO

NB: Photos without metadata were taken by Nikon F6, the film camera