So today was the pinnacle of the China trip. We climbed the Great Wall. After an early rise and breakfast, we piled on the bus for the two hour ride to glory. …yeah. After we got there we dodged the waiting vendors near our bus and fended them off with promises of our return. With charger horse and blog camera in hand I began my ascent up the mountain along with the rest of the group…
So first we took a cable car up the mountain. A long cable car. Like seriously, it had to be half an hour getting up. Ben had wanted to walk up the mountain himself to get to the wall, but I think after our cable car ride he might have changed his mind… (it would have taken four hours for him to get up there walking, says Li Laoshi. Keep in mind we had two hours at the wall itself…) We managed to keep busy doing cable car Chinese fire drills and singing such classics as the Superman theme song, Kung Fu Fighting, Indiana Jones, and… I don’t even remember… As Mark might say: it’s whatever. So after the cable car we had to climb a lot of stairs. Going up isn’t fun, at least a nice Chinese lady fanned Julie and I as we went up (turns out she just wanted to sell us souvenirs for 100 RMB. Who saw that coming? Anybody?) So at the top… it’s… pretty great. It’s, y’know. A wall. A pretty great wall. It’s got a spiffy view, and there’s a nice hike to have up there. Also you can actually see the carvings on some of the bricks from the workers. I went the wrong direction when I got to the top, so I kinda wasn’t with the rest of the group for the most part, but it’s basically the same thing either way. I caught up with them and we chilled out in the shade of the guard towers. At the high end of the wall, one of us (me) got a really great idea (it was really stupid, but pretty sweet) to sprint as fast as possible down the entirety of this length of the wall (almost barreled into an old woman, nearly throwing her to a violent end at the bottom of the wall. Either that or she’d be stuck on the Mongolia side and half to walk around the whole blasted thing to get back. We ((runners)) discussed this in detail while waiting at the bottom end of the wall for the rest of the group ((walkers)). ) The rest is in the pictures. After the return trip to the bottom of the wall, we loaded up on chips ahoy and headed back to Beijing. After a rest, we headed back out for dinner…
In essence though, to sum up our afternoon attempt to go to the shopping mall and get food, I can use this one particular quote: “Guuuuys. This frickin’ sucksss…!” Also we came to realize that a haze similar to the Fog of Progress (y’know. The haze.) exists in most Chinese restaurants not in hotels or other similar establishments during Chinese meal hours. Seriously, my contacts shriveled up in my eyes from that level of cigarette smoke. “Bu yao, xie xie.” After great failure we gave up and went back to the hotel. A Samuel L Jackson movie was on HBO though, so at least it wasn’t total failure. Great Wall. Not so Great Evening. Semi Great Success for today.
~Colin
So first we took a cable car up the mountain. A long cable car. Like seriously, it had to be half an hour getting up. Ben had wanted to walk up the mountain himself to get to the wall, but I think after our cable car ride he might have changed his mind… (it would have taken four hours for him to get up there walking, says Li Laoshi. Keep in mind we had two hours at the wall itself…) We managed to keep busy doing cable car Chinese fire drills and singing such classics as the Superman theme song, Kung Fu Fighting, Indiana Jones, and… I don’t even remember… As Mark might say: it’s whatever. So after the cable car we had to climb a lot of stairs. Going up isn’t fun, at least a nice Chinese lady fanned Julie and I as we went up (turns out she just wanted to sell us souvenirs for 100 RMB. Who saw that coming? Anybody?) So at the top… it’s… pretty great. It’s, y’know. A wall. A pretty great wall. It’s got a spiffy view, and there’s a nice hike to have up there. Also you can actually see the carvings on some of the bricks from the workers. I went the wrong direction when I got to the top, so I kinda wasn’t with the rest of the group for the most part, but it’s basically the same thing either way. I caught up with them and we chilled out in the shade of the guard towers. At the high end of the wall, one of us (me) got a really great idea (it was really stupid, but pretty sweet) to sprint as fast as possible down the entirety of this length of the wall (almost barreled into an old woman, nearly throwing her to a violent end at the bottom of the wall. Either that or she’d be stuck on the Mongolia side and half to walk around the whole blasted thing to get back. We ((runners)) discussed this in detail while waiting at the bottom end of the wall for the rest of the group ((walkers)). ) The rest is in the pictures. After the return trip to the bottom of the wall, we loaded up on chips ahoy and headed back to Beijing. After a rest, we headed back out for dinner…
In essence though, to sum up our afternoon attempt to go to the shopping mall and get food, I can use this one particular quote: “Guuuuys. This frickin’ sucksss…!” Also we came to realize that a haze similar to the Fog of Progress (y’know. The haze.) exists in most Chinese restaurants not in hotels or other similar establishments during Chinese meal hours. Seriously, my contacts shriveled up in my eyes from that level of cigarette smoke. “Bu yao, xie xie.” After great failure we gave up and went back to the hotel. A Samuel L Jackson movie was on HBO though, so at least it wasn’t total failure. Great Wall. Not so Great Evening. Semi Great Success for today.
~Colin
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