New Off topic, the Great Wall of China thanks to my HP42S 'break program'! pics

[Geoff Quickfall]

Just a header here, thanks goes to Diego for his improved ATIME HP42S substitute routine. That is to say, the HP41CX has an ATIME routine and the HP42S does not. I managed to reproduce the function with a 75 byte program dealing with the numeric side to correct the alpha-numeric display and printing.

Diego managed it in 43 (corrected by Diego ;-) bytes using ASHF, AROT and some numeric tricks. Thanks to that and the break program I wrote, I was well rested to take a tour of the Great Wall on my Beijing trip after 12 hours in the air! Enough of the blatant HP pandering, here are the pictures:

I FORGOT my SLR digital and had to use the Cell Phone camera so apologies for the graphics. Some of them have a Impressionistic appearance!

Starting at the base of the hill is the sign prior to arriving at the gondola for the ride up the hill. Fortunately I passed all the questions although question two, part two was a poser! Having convinced them I was sane away I went:

I was a misty day and this part of the wall was up in the clouds. We could not get as far as we wanted to as the mist had coated the stones and some of the grade was upwards of 45 degrees. Easy to get up, hard and dangerous to get down.

In some places of course there was access to the south or Beijing side of the wall. I did not see any access to the north for Mongol invasion forces!

After descending the stairs above you end up on the south of the wall and here is the view:

All the canons faced the north also as well as the embedded sloping holes for the bowmen:

Some shots of the wall and the towers dotted along:

Some detail of the brick work inside the towers:

A chair lift down the hill at the end of the tour:

Only to be met by the local law enforcement who decided that I did not pass point 2 of rule number 2!

Another trip with a 3 day layover starting Saturday. I will take a tour of the Airforce museum at an old airforce base built into the side of a mountain! Pictures there with HP content and good camera!

Hope you enjoyed the off topic tour!!

Geoff

Edited: 25 Oct 2008, 12:44 a.m. after one or more responses were posted

[Diego Diaz]

Hi...

Thanks again for the credit... (though there were just 43 bytes... :-))

Also thanks for sharing these pics... BTW, acording to the last one, you don't look drunkard so you must be insane! ;-))

Cheers and have a nice flight back home.

Diego.

[George Bailey (Bedford Falls)]

Geoff,

first you tell us you were a pilot - now we see you were WALKING to China. There are no honest people anymore...

;-)

Nice to see though that you were so fast with the help of your new program that you had some time to spare. Thanks for the pictures!

Regards,
George

[Geoff Quickfall]

I flew there but my arms got real tired!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers, Geoff

[Walter B]

Hi Geoff,

Thanks for sharing. Do you remember the place you entered the wall? I visited this building some 12 years ago and there was no cable car to be seen anywhere. BTW, for me the sign looks pretty much like those common in the USA, i.e. a lot of clauses to prevent recourses to the site operator if something should happen. No chance for insane people ;)

Ceterum censeo: HP, launch a 43s (incl. time and date functions by default, as you know)

Walter

[Geoff Quickfall]

I was just a passenger and wasn't paying attention to the actual site entrance. This was a restored portion of the wall and the the access could have been made by hiking. This particular section was very commercial.

I will be doing the flight tomorrow and the weather in Beijing should be much nicer. I intend to go up again and pay attention and take the SLR camera with me.

I am also going to tour the Aviation museum while I am there.

Lots of Tsing Tao and peanut chicken with garlic also!!

I was wondering, if you know you are insane and therefore can answer the question as to whether or not you can get in the gondola, would you really be insane? Reminds me of the the book "Catch 22", good movie too.

Cheers, Geoff

Edited: 25 Oct 2008, 2:23 a.m.

[Stuart Goldberg]

You asked: "Do you remember the place you entered the wall?"

I was there several years ago. The site is about an hour north of Beijing, called Mutianyu. You take the cable car (actually more like ski-lifts) to the wall. To get back down, you can either ride the lift or ride on a sled down a steel slalom race. You can find pictures/movies of that on YouTube. It's quite an exciting ride!!

Stu

[Walter B]

Thanks, Stuart,

Mu Tian Yu is the place I (didn't) remember. As mentioned, there wasn't any ski lift earlier.

[DaveJ]

Quote:

---

You asked: "Do you remember the place you entered the wall?"

I was there several years ago. The site is about an hour north of Beijing, called Mutianyu. You take the cable car (actually more like ski-lifts) to the wall. To get back down, you can either ride the lift or ride on a sled down a steel slalom race. You can find pictures/movies of that on YouTube. It's quite an exciting ride!!

---

I've been to Badaling and saw a sled ride back down, I thought it was totally lame and out of place so refused to ride it!

Badaling is the most "touristy" part of the rebuilt wall, we practically couldn't move on some parts. I expected to be inundated by foreign tourists (in their thousands), but we were practically the only non-Chinese people there.

We had to walk right out for many km past the main part of the wall were people normally turn back in order to get a part of the wall to ourselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badaling

http://www.alternatezone.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=6&pos=1

Dave.

[Geoff Quickfall]

Your correct, it was a touristy area and the name sounds correct. Fortunately it was a misty rainy day and the tourists and locals were few and far between.

You can see from the pictures that there were few sight seers!

Cheers, Geoff

[Egan Ford]

I had a similar situation in 2003 (i.e. no tourists). I was working in Shenzhen (Guangdong) shortly before SARS effectively quarantined off Southern China. My family was to meet me in Beijing for vacation, at the time Northern China was OK. That status changed shortly before my family arrived.

Long story short, we had large sections of the wall to ourselves. SARS scared off most visitors.

Shenzhen to HK rail station April 2003:

[Walter B]

Unlimited belief in mechanical filtering ;)