Korean Job Discussion Forums

[RACETRAITOR]

One of my Korean students might be going to China for her spring break. She wanted to walk from one end of the Great Wall to the other. According to her sociology textbook takes two days. Her friend laughed at this and said, "Korean textbooks are always wrong. I bet you it takes three days." So I looked it up online. One hiking company offers this hike for eleven days, which seems pretty quick to me.

[spliff]

Wow...that sounds like something I'd enjoy doing w/ my wife. However, I bet It's "tourist trap city" all along the way..I wonder if they have camp sites along the trek (like they have in Europe)....I'd want to camp it. I've never been too keen on traveling in China but, this has possibilities...a once in a lifetime thing hat would make for a great conversational topic back home at my parents dinner table!

[huffdaddy]

[re:cursive]

It's going to take a whole lot more than 2 days and unless things have changed since 2002 when I was there, you're not able to walk the whole length on the wall itself. Different sections are closed off. And yes a lot of it is filled with tourist traps. The part I went to outside of Beijing was a bit ridiculous. Once I made my way through the gauntlet of vendors trying to sell me souveniers and bought my ticket I was able to see the numerous chairlifts available to take you to the top. I was also able to see the steel tobogan ride that you could take to get down. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a rollercoaster there now. I didn't make use of any of these facilities and instead chose to walk up and down the original thousands of stairs to get to the top. Still it wasn't quite the experience I was expecting.

At the time I remember reading about a guy who walked the whole wall (well at least followed it's path through China). I can't remember the details but I do remember thinking that it took a whole lot of time. It's going to take a while to hike over all of that terrain.

[RACETRAITOR]

[VanIslander]

It's over 6000 kilometres!

Good luck in walking it in even a month!!

Koreans are so unaware of how truly tiny their nation is.

I have a world map on my wall which makes new students angry and sad, "Oh it's so small!" they whine about their country.

[RACETRAITOR]

Anyway, this is probably the best answer I can give now:

"a relatively healthy person could probably average roughly 35kms a day (8 hours of walking). Therefore it would take about 191 days � just over 6 months."

I'm looking for info on that guy who actually completed it.

[SPINOZA]

6352km divided by 48 hours of non-stop walking would require a speed of 132km per hour.

Must be the kimchi.

[Grimalkin]

[SeoulShakin]

When I was there, I went to the same area the above poster described, with the chairlifts and the sled ride down. There are many areas that are closed off because they are not restored yet. We reached the end of one area, and came across a sign that read "please do not go any further". This was of course, a sign to tell us to continue

We ended up at an area that hadn't been restored to look how it used to, and was crumbling and falling apart. It was actually one of the better parts of the journey for us, because it wasn't as touristy, and it really put its history into perspective. You could feel how old it was, just by standing there. I got pictures from both areas, so I could show the difference between what you see on travel channels, and what it looked like before they fixed it up. Some of my favourite pictures from Beijing. I guess sometimes breaking the rules have benefits.

[Qinella]

[HapKi]

In addition, the wall follows the contour of the mountains- beautiful from a distance but brutally aerobic up close. You've got the wall going straight up an incline, with stone steps 2- 3 feet each in height. Walking like that gets old very quickly.

[ajgeddes]

[antoniothegreat]

[doggyji]

I went to see a very small segment of the Great Wall several years ago. It was brutally overwhelming. A must-see.