When I booked my hotel, I also signed up for a couple of other programs. I figured that I’d want to do some things after mom and Rick left, but I wanted to do some different things, maybe not what everyone else does. “Nancy” came and picked me up at 8:30 in the morning (groan). Nancy is her taken western name. Her actual name in Chinese literally translated is “Snow White”, pretty cool eh? Anyway, when I signed up for the tours, the fine print said that at least two people had to sign up. I figured that it was no big deal, if no one else signed up, it would be cancelled and I’d do something else. As it turns out no one else signed up, and they did not cancel it! I had my own driver and tour guide for two days! It was really nice, we were able to talk about whatever we wanted and we were able to change the schedule as I wanted.
Our first stop was back to the great wall. Earlier I went with mom and Rick to the Badaling section, This day I went to the Juyongguan pass section. I now understand why The Badaling section is more popular than this one, The Juyongguan pass covers some really serious vertical distance. This was a real workout, all stairs, the original stairmaster, LOL. As you can see from the pictures, it is quite a way up. I was beat and my legs were rubber by the time I was through…
After we ate, we went to an Army base so I could do some target shooting. I’m not much of a gun person, but I thought that this would be an interesting thing to do, and it was. We first went into a room to select a weapon, and there were probably 40 or 50 guns to choose from. They had pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, automatic, semiautomatic, assault rifles, etc. They also had a wide range of ages from new back to world war II vintage stuff. So I could shoot with a current M-16, a Lugar pistol, a Sig Sauer rifle from the 70’s, an actual Uzi, or any number of other guns. I would think that someone that was really into shooting or guns would love this place. You do have to pay of course. There is a nominal fee for the gun chosen and then you pay per round of ammo shot. The price varies from weapon to weapon and with the type of ammo used. I do think that there is quite a markup on the ammo, but in China, the government is the sole provider, so what can you do? I decided to start out with an AK-47 (Kalishnikov), it’s a standard weapon all over the world and seemingly the national weapon of Yemen… Because of the cost, I did not do any automatic shooting, I was strictly a single shot guy. I think I did pretty well for a first timer, the picture of the target is up on my flickr page. That was at 25 meters, I backed it up to 35 the next time and didn’t do quite as well, but I still managed to hit the center target 3 times out of ten.
It was a bit disconcerting since I was shooting for the first time. The target was far enough away that I couldn’t tell if if I was hitting it or not. I didn’t know until the target was brought in. What sticks with me most is the sound and the smell. Those suckers are LOUD. Even with the ear protection on, I was amazed at how loud it was, I cannot imagine shooting that without protection, my hearing would be nothing in no time flat. I don’t like the smell of the smoke from the rounds, it was much more acrid than I anticipated. Oh, the other thing I’ll remember is the shells FLYING out of the gun, it was a bit startling. Once I got the hang of the recoil, I was able to do it pretty well. I then tried a Chinese “sniper” rifle, sorry, I don’t have the model number… I was expecting to do better with this, but either their explanation of the sighting system lost something in the translation, or the scope was off because I wasn’t anywhere near as accurate. Since I had a scope, I could see where I was hitting the target and could adjust, but since the rounds were about 2 bucks a piece, I kept it down to 10 shots. Despite being a smaller caliber, this rifle had much more recoil and a louder report.
Unfortunately, since this was on an army base, photographs were not allowed. When I asked why, the guide said that they didn’t want their secrets getting out. Of course since I was there, and it was a shooting range, I can’t imagine there were any secrets to be had. I couldn’t even keep any of the shells… Oh well. If anyone out there is interested in trying this out, drop me a line and I will put you in touch with a guide that can take you there.