The Great Wall’ker

I wish you all a very happy Rabbit New Year. According to tradition, one should make it a goal to create a safe, peaceful lifestyle, so you will be able to calmly deal with any problem that may arise. That sounds perfect to me now that the walk along the Great Wall is finished. The new computer is set up, but as always there are quite a few problems to sort out. At least now all the pictures are in the same place, and I have started working on the presentation which is a lot of fun.

There are more videos and more information to come here. Sorry for the delay. I need to wrap up a few more media issues before diving in to all the videos and presenting the best ones. Now that the walk is over, I also plan to do some changes on these pages so that the information is easier to find.

Again - a Happy New Year, and may we all stick to a peaceful lifestyle this year!!

After having sorted out a lot of practical matters, I now have a very nice place to live (Many thanks Øystein!) and a monster computer that I will be using for writing the book and creating a presentation about the walk. Can’t wait to get started. As I re-discover pictures I have taken, I want to start writing more here, particularly more about the equipment I have been using. Also some advice to others that are considering or already planning on walking the Great Wall.

If you happen to live in Norway, tune in to the radio program Nitimen Saturday morning for an update on how things are going.

Det kommer et innslag på radio i Nitimen lørdag morgen, om turen, og hvordan det har vært å komme tilbake til Norge.

I have done this walk to raise money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Because of technical difficulties, we have not been able to invite you to make a donation before now.

If you have enjoyed following me on my lonesome walk along the entire Great Wall of China, please help me raise money for Cancer Research by clicking this link. The donation is in US Dollars $, the payment system is 100% secure, and you will receive a confirmation mail once the donation is made.

From the Dana-Farber website: Your support will help fund innovative cancer research programs here at Dana-Farber and bring us closer to finding effective treatments and cures for cancer. In other words, supporting this cause will potentially help people everywhere as the results of research programs are shared internationally.

Now that the dust has settled after the New Year celebrations and people are going back to work, I am also getting ready for the next and probably final chapter of my adventure. In the coming weeks and months, I will be writing a book and creating a presentation about my walk along the Ming Dynasty Great Wall.

On the more immediate level, I’m concerned with finding a place to live in Oslo and buying a new computer that can churn through all the thousands of pictures I have taken over the last 20 months. Once that is in place, the book and presentation will become my passion and work in progress!

The story about this walk has reached further than I had ever thought. People seem to get very excited when they hear the story, and how I made the decision to follow a more than 20 year old dream.

The following were published, around and just after the end of the walk: One page article in China Daily, a long article in China Radio International, a radio interview taken the same day I came to Beijing only two days after the walk was finished (Click the Listen button under the picture) . In Norway, there was an article in VG, and several radio interviews. In the UK, this article was published.

In addition, the story has picked up interest in Spain, France, Romania, Vietnam, Russia, Afganistan, Japan and a lot in China of course.

I wish you all the very best for 2011!!! Keep checking by this site - I’m not finished yet   

Since I got back from China I have noticed two things. Time flies, and I have had to use some time to get acquainted with life in Norway.

Bjørn Sindre and Julie busy cutting a Great Wall section

A week ago, I visited some good friends to the south of Oslo, and we spent an afternoon on a typical Norwegian Christmas activity: baking ginger bread.

Keeping in tradition with what I had spent the last 20 months doing, we managed to create a Great Wall ginger bread house, fully equipped with a ginger bread soldier standing guard, and small jelly men (or were they women?) trying to get over the wall.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and hope you will check back in the new year for more pictures, videos and some posts I have yet to write.

Busy at work, all be it less strenuous than walking.

Julie decorating the walls

Putting the sections together.

Julie showing off the Great Wall ginger bread end product. Notice the soldier standing guard in front. He would probably be better off on the top of the Great Wall.

I’ve been back in Oslo for two weeks already. It is starting to sink in that I am not walking the Great Wall of China anymore. It is definitely going to take some time to get used to life here, as is the transition from solitude to a social life. I’ll write more about that later.

When I was walking the Great Wall, starting the day was simple. Eat and drink in the tent. Pack everything, check I haven’t forgotten anything, and start walking.

Yesterday I borrowed my parents car to go to the dentist. Everything I did felt new to me. Find the keys to the house, find the keys to the car. I went out and realized I had forgotten the keys to the garage. Then I remembered I needed coins for the parking meter in town. As I sat in the car, I remembered I should get my drivers licence from the pouch I have been carrying along the entire Great Wall. Oh yes - and don’t forget to turn on the alarm. Sometimes life is simpler in a tent…

I have been dormant for a little while now, but want to let you know that I intend to keep on writing here. There are more pictures, videos and stories from the Great Wall to come.

Walking the Great Wall of China would have been near to impossible if it had not been for all the help I received along the way from Chinese people. I know that in years to come when I look back on the experience, it will be the kind and helpful people I will remember the most. Being alone for such a long time is a tough experience, so to meet charitable people now and again makes it easier.

Picture taken on the evening of the day I finished my journey along the entire Ming Dynasty Great Wall. I was so grateful for the hospitality shown by the management of Zhonglian hotel!

I do not know the names of most of the people who helped me. The bus drivers that bought me a warm meal during the freezing winter of 2009, the people that many times let me into their homes at the warmest time of the day during the summer of 2009, perhaps asking if I wanted some watermelon before the heat resided and I walked on. People that went out of their way to help me find the right bus, or bus station when I was going from one place to another. The shepherds along the Great Wall that I used to stop and talk to.  Many days they would be the only people I met. All the shop owners who gave me hot water for my instant noodles and let me sit down in their shop for a little rest before walking on. Those that after hearing what I was doing would give me a meal for free. All those with a big smile who let me take pictures of them. The people that shared their Kang (warmed up bed) with me - I can’t count how many times I have been let into Chinese homes to spend the night there. The list is long!

Thanks again to my brother Jon and Kelly who are not Chinese, but have lived there for years, who helped me ease into a very different culture.

Thanks to Shelly of Jiayuguan, who my brother and I had contact with for a long time after the beginning of the walk, for helping us with practical matters.

Thanks to Sue who lives in Denmark but comes from Liaoning - the last Province I walked through - for helping me with the Chinese blog she has been running while I have been walking. Thanks for the help underway and for helping me communicate with all the Chinese that have been interested in the walk. When I return to China, I look forward to inviting friends in China for a walk along the Great Wall!

Many thanks to Helen who lives in Yulin in Shanxi Province. Thankyou for helping to translate when I had problems at the Visa office, for helping with the media in Yulin and then for taking on the large task of translating the blog from English to Chinese! I’m very grateful Helen! Also to Xiaoli who did the translation of the same site in the beginning.

Thanks to Vice-President Mr Dong of the Great Wall Society for welcoming me so nicely to China when I first arrived, and writing a letter of recommendation that helped me on occasions in sticky situations.

A big thanks to Pingping, Kelly, Xiao Zu and Beibei in Beijing for all the help underway with Visa’s, equipment, insurance etc - the list is long. Kelly - thanks for all the world problem solving talks we had while having hour long foot massages. They will be missed!

Thanks to Cherry in Datong, Sherry in Qinhuangdao, Frank in Xining and many others that I could and would call now and again if there was some Chinese I did not understand, and needed some translation help!

Lastly - a big thanks to Zhao Fu Qiang, Vivian and her friends at the Zhonglian International Hotel in Dandong. Vivian called me half a year before I arrived in Dandong inviting me to stay at their hotel once I got to my final destination. At that time, I did not know that they wanted to sponsor my entire stay in Dandong. Once I got there, I was shocked by your generosity. Thank you very much! Knowing that someone was waiting for me at the very end of the walk was a great incentive!

After a flight via London, I arrived in Oslo late last night. A bunch of friends, family and girlfriend turned up at the airport which was very nice. Felt so strange, but really really good to be back home in one piece. Another bunch of friends and colleagues were waiting at my parent’s house and despite the late hours, we had a really good few hours together. It was great to see you all again  

Also thanks for the gifts that included enough socks to get me through 2011, foot massages, SPA stay with my girlfriend, Norwegian food that is impossible to get hold of in China, tickets to the Christmas concert of Bjørn Eidsvåg - an artist I listened lots to along the Great Wall and a calendar for 2011. Many thanks!!!

Am sitting here at my parent’s house after a good and long nights sleep. I’m eating some sandwiches that my mother made, noticing how she has cleverly planted a thick layer of butter between the bread and ‘pålegg’. Haha - I’ll fatten up again in no time.

Here are some pictures that were taken yesterday - thanks a lot for taking and sending them Margrete!

The gang…

First hug with my girlfriend since early May… No - I’m not crying…

Finally home!!

Notice - dirty trousers, and my ‘resting shoes’. The other shoes were left behind in China as they had served their purpose.

Back home at my parent’s house celebrating! Had slept 2-3 hours the last 24, but it was so much fun!!

China just doesn’t want me to leave… The staff at Finnair have been inspired by their Spanish counterparts and are on strike.

My flight is cancelled, and I will be flying BA via London instead.

Now arriving 20.10 at Gardermoen so the get together will be postponed by an hour. (and perhaps a half)