today I climbed the great wall of china!

My time in Beijing so far has been great- I met some Australians at the train station in Shanghai who were staying at my hostel, and since we were put in the same room, I have been hanging out with them. My first day here was spent mostly sleeping and wandering around the area around the hostel, which is situated in a historical "hutong" (neighboorhood) pretty close to the Forbiodden City, nearby to some very quaint lakes. That night we went to a few of the bars/restaurants that line the lake- varying from a reggae bar to a traditional tea house where I received a souvenier of our visit from the proprietor, a lovely woman with perfect english skills. She gave us a calligraphy of the symbols for luck and fortune, which I am keeping and will scan copies to the rest of the group.

Yesterday we got a late start on our plans to see Tiennamen's Square and the Forbidden City, and we got to part of it as it was closing, so I'll have to go back another day to see more. After that we wandered around forever trying to find the "Old Beijing Noodle King" restaurant that was highlighted in my guidebook and seemed very close to where we were. After walking for 45 minutes and not finding it, we finally got in a cab which drove us the rest of the way but turned the wrong way down the street assuming that we wanted to go to the malls and restauarnts that were there. We walked for another 10 minutes and finally found it, and it was worth the wait! The waiters shout to eachother as customers walk in the door of this huge restaurant, and we only spotted one other table of westerners, so we knew we were in a good spot. The food was delicious and we were all happy that we had stuck it out after a long day of walking around the city. We came back to the hostel to finalize our plans for our outing today to the great wall and went to sleep on the early side to prepare for our early wake up time and big adventure to see and climb the wall!

The alarm went off at 6 am today, and by 7:00 6 of us had gathered in the lobby of the hostel(me, the 3 Australians-Dennis, Meg, and Emma, a Brit who arrived yesterday named Wayne, and a Chinese girl named Teresa who was visiting from another province). We hired the driver from the hostel for the day to drive us in their van from Beijing to two points at the wall abut 3 hrs away- one for the more adventurous 4 (not me!) and then to another point called Simatai which is a bit easier, where Meg and I got off. We planned to all meet at 3:00 at the entrance to Simatai, and cheated a bit by taking the Cable Car and then a scary mini train car up the mountain, closer to the actual entrance to the wall. It looked like quite a hike and we weren't so sure we could handle it! We still had a steep hike up a hill and some stairs to get onto the wall. The view from up there was incredible, it is in a lush, green area of mountains and farms surrounding it on all sides. We were "assisted" for a bit by a chinese couple who had badges on from the Wall with their pictures, and they kind of just led us along for a while before pulling out their bags of goods (tshirts, postcards, and books) and giving us a sob story about themselves. I felt bad and gave them 20 rmb (only about $3) and Meg was twisted into buying a "I climbed the Great Wall" tshirt. We carried on walking for about 3 hours or so before making our way down the mountain, feeling very accomplished! The others met us at the bottom, and we made our way back to the waiting car and I think all of us passed out! Next thing we knew we were back at the hostel. Here is a link to see some information about the section that we visited:
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china_great_wall/scene/beijing/simatai.htm

All in all, it was an amazing experience and most likely a once-in- a- lifetime one, so it was very exciting to be there.

We are heading out for dinner now to a traditional chinese hotpot restaurant-should be yummy, its getting pretty chilly out!

-kp