China - Day 8

Day 8, the start of another week in China. No, it's not Monday here in China, it's just day 8... You all figured that out anyway, but I'm just making sure. Today was just a wonderful day! It was clear and you could see the blue sky. As we are learning, that does not happen too often here in Beijing. Today, like one of the other days last week (I forget which one) was just awesome.

So, today we went to the Wild Great Wall. It is the same great wall, but this part is a little less kept up. The wall actually comes down right to the road. The wall was cleared away for the road, so it's not a tunnel or anything, but yeah, the wall comes right down to street level. I don't think I got a picture of that *smack* but I don't think I could have gotten the angle right.

So, we left around 9:30 for the Great Wall. We went with the Huangs and another family that they know that raises dogs. I don't know how long it took to get there, but it wasn't too bad. We got to the wall and started climbing... There is a lake on on side with a dam. So, you have to walk across the top of the dam in order to get to the wall. Unlike the other part of the wall we went on, this one was almost all uphill...it was pretty crazy. Now, this is supposed to be a "wild" part of the wall, but the part where the tourists were was perfectly fine as far as upkeep. The wall looked great, and there were minimal signs of ware. Now, in order to get to the real "wild" wall, we had to do a bit of hiking.

Before getting to that though, let me just say that the Chinese are pretty inventive. It they see an opportunity to make money, they will. So, in order to pass along the path to the great wall, we had to pay 2 qui a person (nothing really, about 30 cents a person) but still, these are just people. I'm quite sure they had nothing to do with the government or land ownership or anything. But hey, when in China, learn to put up with a little bit of that.

So, we started up to the wall. In order to get to the wall you have to hike along a path. The whole path was uphill, and in some places pretty slippery. After that, you got up right next to the wall, and had to get on the wall by climbing a ladder and coming through a window. Anyway, that was a little new. On the wall everything was up. Now, that of course means that everything is going down when coming back, but that does not help when going up... The wall at this point was really steep. I don't know exactly how steep it was, but maybe 30-45 degrees at some points. The stones were also smooth, they were not laid in steps in many places. So, you had to make sure of your footing at all times. So, we walked up quite a bit of the wall. Our group split up into about four groups by the end of the journey.

One group staid by the ladder area, basically, there was no climbing involved. So, that group consisted of the young boys and my mom, I think. The next group was made up of myself my dad, and some a few others. We further split up when we got to the "real" wild Great Wall. It was my dad, myself, and one of the Huangs. We went to the real Great Wall. The other part of our group staid on the wall. The third group was my Danny, Katherine, and two other friends. they went every far up the wall. At a valley in wall, they continued up the wall to the topish part. When my group (the second one) came to the same spots the three of us, as previously mentioned, went off the wall and headed along a path to get to the "real" wall.

That was a pretty fun adventure. Like I said in the beginning, the Chinese are pretty innovative. On this trail, going from one part of the wall to the other, we encountered a pretty crazy lady. So, we met this lady that was probably at least 50, probably older. She had a bag with plastic bottles stuffed in it, and a little hatchet type thing, but it had a sickle head on it. Well, we were just walking along this trail when she comes up to us and starts babbling in Chinese. She said a whole bunch of stuff, and eventually ended up repeating "wu, qui" quite a few times. That is, five qui... So, in order to go on that trail, we had to pay her (random lady that certainly has no ownership of the land there) five qui. Well, we didn't really want to do that, and we were not far along the trail, so we just started to turn around. She ended up going on top of the wall, and we were left about where we met her. We had this back and forth with the remainder of our group on the wall. "Go, you don't need to pay her, just go on!" that is what we heard. We responded, "Just pay her, we don't want to deal with a crazy sickle carrying person!" Well, after a little of that, we started walking along the trail again, and that lady went crazy on the wall. She started yelling and screaming. She came back to us while we were on the trail and demanded her five qui a person. Well, we were not about to just press on while she had her sickle to our backs...I mean, we could have overpowered her easily, but I didn't really want to get into a fight with the lady on the trail, neither did anyone else in the group.

We ended up paying her and just moving on. She told us that there were three other people on the trail that would collect money from us, but "whatever" we thought. So, we just moved on. As it turns out, there were no other people on the trail, and we made it there and back without any other adventures.

Going on the wild wall was really cool though. The real wall that has not been up kept is completely overgrown. There are big shrubs on it, lots of small grasses and all sorts of things. You can't even see if there are steps, or if the wall is smooth. Anyway, I was the only one that made it up the overgrown wall to the first guard tower. After all of that, we were all dead. Our legs were just about shot. We made it back in one piece though.

We had lunch/dinner right there by the wall in a local place. We got there about an hour after everyone else had started eating, but they ordered more food for us. We had a bit of stuff, but the crowning glory was a big fish. I guess that type of fish can only grow in that area because something with the water. Anyway, that was really good. We then came home and basically did nothing! Kudos for rest. I don't know what we are going to do tomorrow, but it may involve resting/sleeping in...At least, I hope it does
-Aaron
By the way, I am very sorry if there is a lot of bad grammar/writing in these posts. It is normally pretty late when I write these, and I don't have an editor (and I don't like reading what i write...)

Ok, so, here are some of the pictures. I'm just posting a few of the photos here. There are more on the web album (25) that you can look at (Click the hyperlink at the bottom of any of the pictures that says "China Day 8"). Those will give you a better idea of what this wall was like. That is nothing compared to the 238 that I took today...but those will have to wait. Anyway, this will just give you a taste of it.


Here is the lake and dam. You can see the wall on the far right. Towards the right of the dam, you can see that the water spills over. We had to walk on bricks there to keep from getting our feet wet.

From China Day 8

Part of our group. I am missing a few in this shot, but most of them are in there.

From China Day 8

Looking out from the guard tower that we initially climbed into. Where the wall drops down in the middle of the photo, is where the wall comes to the road.

From China Day 8

After a little ways up (really, quite a ways up) we came to this view over the valley.

From China Day 8

Here we are in the area that could be called the "wild" wall, although this part wa not overgrown at all. Yes, it is that steep, in fact, I would say that it is steeper than it looks.

From China Day 8

This is the part of the wall that is truly wild. I've got another photo on the album that looks like plants, but that was on top of the wall.

From China Day 8