Jia Yu Pass

Woke up on the train to some beautiful scenery: the snow tipped peaks of Qi Lian mountain (祁连山）sparked in the morning sun.

Today we arrive at Jia Yu Pass（嘉峪关）. Our tour group must be a big local draw, since there was an actual dance troupe welcoming us! Our tour guides said they are mainly retirees who are performing as part of their workout...but still.

The morning schedule is quite simple. We drove around Jia Yu Pass city, which is a newly created city for the nearby steel plant. Very clean and quite modern. There is a site for Ironman training/competition. Being a former distance runner, I took some picture in front of the running man statue:)

Our final stop before lunch was at the moon light glass factory. The famous Tang poet, Li Bai(李白）, once wrote: "Lovely grape wine served in Moonlight Glass, As I started drinking, the lute started playing on horse back, Do not laugh if I am drunk on the battle field, How many warriors made it back from the war?"（葡萄美酒月光杯，欲饮琵琶马上催, 醉卧沙场君莫笑，古时征战几人回） Moonlight glass was therefore forever associated with grape wine in Chinese culture.

We had all imagine moonlight glass are crystal glasses. Turns out they are made of a type of dark green color jade with speckles of impurities embedded in the stone. The jade has lots of iron in them, so the glasses can be attracted with magnet. The reason its call moonlight glass is when filled with red wine, the jade glass can be made thin enough that moonlight can shine through the glass, giving the red wine an amber color. Sigh...the real thing is never as romantic as imagination...

The main draw is the old Jia Yu Pass castle. Jia Yu Pass is west most point of the Great Wall during Ming dynasty, so it was an important outpost, and despite the harsh natural condition, the structure has survived well. The tour guide did a good job of explaining the details of the soldier's life in castle during Ming dynasty and the associated entertainment facilities, temple, offices for immigration and of course defence mechanism. A very interesting and informative tour.

The highlight was when we finally walk out the outer most castle wall. Looking west was the vast Gobi desert. Even today, one cannot see road or other man made structure all the way to the horizon. All the talk of the loneliness and uncertainty facing ancient silk route merchants as they left the confines of Jia Yu Pass suddenly seem so relevant...

Next to Jia Yu Pass is the Great Wall museum. Another relatively new museum, it does not have much in terms of collection, but did a very good job of describing the structure of Jia Yu Pass, its defences, its construction and such. A very good conclusion to our Great Wall visit.