Day: January 4, 2011
Places to Go: Great Wall – Huang Hua
Probably the most spectacular tourist attraction in China is the Great Wall. While there are many places where the wall can be accessed – it stretches from east coast all the way to the Gobi Desert in the West, after all – the most popular point from which to approach it certainly is Beijing. The most popular place for tourists is Badaling, without question. But I would like to take you to Huang Hua today. Huang Hua is a well-preserved section, where the wall was kept rather genuine (“Wild Wall”), with only little work of restoration being done – just enough, so visitors can climb it without risk. About 60 km north of Beijing, the Great Wall at Huang Hua clings to a high hillside bordering a reservoir. It perfectly portrays the Ming defense period with high and wide ramparts. Only few tourists find their way to Huang Hua, especially compared to famous Badaling where souvenir shops, restaurants and amusement park rides draw crowds of visitors, and vendors offer their goods every couple of steps …
Behind the Scenes: Goals 2011
Let’s talk about our goals for 2011 today. I’m sure, everyone has goals that they want to reach, things they want to accomplish, hopes and dreams for the new year. Usually, I don’t like to think too much about goals, because my philosophy is: if you realize you need to change something or do something different or accomplish something, start today instead of waiting for the next year to come. Still, I think the turn of the year is a great time to reflect on the past and make some resolutions for the new year. So, this year, I decided to turn my goals into a layout, and here’s what I came up with: As I was brainstorming for this page, I realized that I have a lot of things I want to accomplish in 2011. And there are things I wish for, hopes I have, dreams. So, I decided I’ll put everything together into one page instead of making different pages for each of those categories. Now, you can see how I talk about …