The Great Wall’ker

On Friday, I went to visit the China Great Wall organization. I met Vice President Mr Dong Yaohui and Vice Secretary General Yan Jianmin. My Chinese friend Chen Shu had set up this meeting from Denmark. Thank you Shu!!

Mr Dong and I had a good talk about the Ming Dynasty Great Wall, and the potential challenges that will be awaiting me. He spent 508 days walking along the Great Wall in 1984 - 85 and possesses a lot of knowledge about it. Amongst the things that we covered: There will be snakes along The Wall, but none are poisonous enough to kill you. There are scorpions in the desert, but they only give a bad sting. They asked me if I was using a GPS, which I am (in a big way).

According to Mr Dong, there are two places on the Ming Dynasty Wall which have an inner loop but  I should follow the outer loop. He offered me a map of the Great Wall which was the result of his Masters degree on the subject. He also told me about the nine and later ten Fortresses along the Great Wall. Later, I showed Mr Dong and Mr Yan the intended route for the walk on Google Maps.

Mr Dong was kind enough to write me a letter of recommendation, which is much appreciated. He is widely known in China and I am very grateful for his letter and the standing offer of contacting him if I get into trouble. Thank you Mr Dong. We also talked about walking a section of the Great Wall together which I am already looking forward to!

We then went out to eat and the tone became more informal. I learnt many things, amongst others that in China it is seen as respectful to wait until one’s father has died before growing a beard. That is, luckily, not the case in Norway and my father is still alive and kicking. The food was really good and I used the opportunity to ask them to write the names of the dishes so I can order them later!

You can read about the equipment I am, and am not bringing here. This is the first of three pages on the subject. The others describe the high-tech-ness of this trip, and a list of everything in my rucksack.

Yesterday I had an important meeting with a salesperson from China Mobile. After sitting together for a fair amount of time, we managed to sort out the following: A new Chinese SIM card that works in all of China. It lets me send cheap messages to Norway but I cannot receive from abroad. I will be able to use the phone to update this website via GPRS once I’m walking the Great Wall. I even learnt how to recharge the phone card and call a number to see how much credit I have left. All this was done with a little English knowledge by the sales lady, and even less Chinese knowledge on my part.

The above - together with the HTC S740 mobile phone sponsored by Nordialog - are the two most important factors for me to be able to write daily reports when walking. So I was a very happy guy when I walked out of the door!

The next important meeting is with the China Great Wall Organization which I will write more about tomorrow.

After a long haul from London Heathrow to Beijing, I am at last in China! My brother gave me the address of a nice hotel close to the Beijing University and I have slept a little, as I didn’t get any sleep at all on the flight over. This is one of the blessings of being 1.85 cm (6 ft plus) tall and sitting in slightly cramped conditions on the plane.

Things have definitely changed since I was in China in 1998. The town looks a lot more developed and we drove past several of the spectacular Olympic arenas on the way here. The room I am in has both Norwegian, English and Chinese/US type power outlets. But some things remain the same. For instance I can hear the careful and more or less continuous beeping of cars, on the road outside the window, letting other cars in the vicinity know their whereabouts. In Norway, a car usually only beeps if there is a very close call, or one gets angry. Here it is just a happy signal letting you know: “Here I come!”.

Thanks to my parents and sister for giving me a lot of help these last days in Oslo! Much appreciated   

Now that this is posted, it’s time to go out and get something to eat. I will stay in Beijing for a few days now, to get the last preparations finished and hopefully meet a representative for the Great Wall Organisation in Beijing and the Norwegian Embassy.

At the airport safety check, I ended up talking to a very sympathetic guy and told him about the trip I am about to start on. He kindly agreed to write a greeting on the back on the boarding card. Thanks a lot Ole Gunnar Solskjaer!	A very nice greeting
The taxi driver that brought me safely from the airport to the hotel. First he asked if I smoke, and then said he wouldn’t smoke as I didn’t. Five minutes later he asked again if I really didn’t smoke, and I confirmed the fact. Another five minutes later he caved in and opened the window and lit a cigarette.A very nice guy, and we managed to keep up a conversation in Chinese of sorts. I learnt the word “Leng” which means cold in Chinese, and often comes up in a conversation when I say I come from Norway. Then I asked him what the word for warm or hot was, and he uttered a word that could only consist of vowels, and was impossible to repeat… I’ll have to bring out the dictionary.Thanks Andreas and Sue - I have corrected to “Leng” third tone, and the “Re” fourth tone that he referred to.	Taxi driver reading the address of the hotel
The Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium from the 2008 summer Olympics. Taken from the road.	The Bird's nest Olympic stadium