On Wednesday I got a chance to meet up with Kim and Andreas from the Great Wall Forum. Andreas and I have joined up on the Great Wall twice before so it was a lot of fun to see him again. There is never a slow moment around him, and we had a lot of fun, and someone had a lot of beer. I’m not mentioning names though… Kim is Danish and lives and works a little south of Qinhuangdao. He has a very good knowledge of the Great Wall particularly in this area, and has been working a lot on the Liaoning Great Wall.

It would have been a perfect evening if Bryan also could have been there. Bryan is the humble founder of the Great Wall Forum. He was in the area a few days earlier, but unfortunately had to head back to Beijing because of becoming really sick. I hope we will all meet up again in the future some time!

Andreas, Robert and Kim

It was really good to meet up with Andreas and Kim. We had a good meal, and then I pulled out my computer and looked at, and discussed the route of the Great Wall in Liaoning. When I get a chance, I will update the planned route to go as close as possible to what we know about where the Great Wall went here. In this last section, there are few findings of the Great Wall. The route is based on some findings here and there – particularly watchtowers. It is also based on old but accurate maps of the region.

The Great Wall in Liaoning was probably a slender construction like the one by Zhangjiakou. On the top it may have only been a few feet wide. In many places of the Great Wall along this section, there has been agricultural activity for several hundred years. This is one of the reasons why the Great Wall here is difficult to get a grasp of. I promised Kim and Andreas to keep my eyes and ears open, take pictures, ask people if they had any knowledge of the Great Wall in Liaoning and report back.

Yesterday I was interviewed by a TV crew for a Chinese program and a local Chinese newspaper. With the TV crew we drove to the First pass under heaven to have an authentic setting for the interview. My brother and I, and two friends: Birgitte and Øystein were here in 1998. It was special to be back there!

Today I am going to send pictures to the news crews, and answer two Norwegian interviews. I will also update the GPS with the route for the next section, make more pictures so that everything is ready for a new stretch along the Great Wall, and entering Liaoning – the last Province of my walk.