Beijing: Part 1

We woke up entirely too early Sunday morning and reconvened the gang at Dongzhimen station where we boarded a bus to the outskirts of the city. We wanted to get out to the Jian Kou (sp?) section of the Great Wall and the idea is to ride the bus as far as we can before switching to an alternate mode of transportation for the last leg of the journey. We got off the bus at the end of the line and were immediately surrounded by a small swarm of drivers all jockeying for position and bickering amongst themselves over the best rate. Luckily, we had Phil serving as tour guide extraordinaire and he bargained to get a deal for all 8 of us to cram into a mian bao che (bread car) for 200 RMB. That's 3 red flags for Phil!

The ride wasn't too exciting (which is how you want it in China) and we arrived at a fish farm at the base of a mountain. We attempted to eat some lunch, but failed miserably. We didn't fail, so much as the waitresses failed. This restaurant was probably one of the most poorly organized establishments I've ever been to... There were hundreds of customers on the roof top (which was beautiful) and they were all yelling "fuwuyuan" (waitress) constantly. It was kind of hilarious actually. Eventually, a couple of waitresses scurried over, took our orders, and then promptly forgot everything. Food was being made, but none of it was going to the right tables. After receiving 1/4 of the food we ordered in an hour, we got fed up, paid for what we ate, and left. On to the wall!

It was a gorgeous day and hiking went swimmingly for the first hour or so. Until our trail dead-ended at a cliff face. At this point, Kevin, Milan, and I monkeyed our way straight up the cliff face (which, in retrospect, was pretty dangerous) and continued trailblazing our way upwards. After some intense bushwacking and rock climbing we made our way to the peak of our little mountain, unfortunately, we weren't really much closer to the Great Wall and now we weren't anywhere close to a path. We decided that going back down the way we came up was too dangerous, so we scrambled/slid down the other side of the mountain until we reached a new path. No more than 5 minutes later, the rest of our gang ambled up. Reunited and rejuvenated, we continued on this new path towards the Wall.

It was pretty late in the afternoon when we summited, but the view was amazing! The skies were clear and blue (a rarity for China) and the weather was perfect. We walked along the wall for a couple of hours and had countless photo taken by Kevin (who is somewhere between professional photographer and stalker). I'm going to weed through the photos tomorrow (we took 1000 on the weekend) and post some of the better ones... Anyways, not too much else to tell, except that the hike was really sweet. I haven't been hiking much out here in China and I missed it.

The day finished up with convincing the gondola man to turn the machine back on for us (so we could get back down the mountain while it was still light), a little frisbee in the parking lot, a ride back to Beijing with Henry (our driver), and a BCD (boozy Chinese dinner) back in the city. Day 1 = Success!

- Jon