Beijing, Day Two

I slept really well last night. I didn't even hear my roommates return to the room or notice them turn out the light. I woke up early this morning and met the bus for the Great Wall hike. I had a window seat, but the cold medicine I took this morning knocked me out, and I slept most of the way. I woke up a few times during the three-hour bus ride to see the change from city to suburbs to country and the land become more mountainous. The country villages we passed looked a little like the villages in North Korea--identical houses in straight rows with grey tile roofs. The Chinese villages seemed in better repair, though, and unlike the eerie silence in North Korea, there were definite signs of life and people about their daily business in the Chinese villages.

We arrived at the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall at about 10:30 AM, and the bus driver said he would meet us at the Simitai section 10 km further on by 2:30 PM. From there we were on our own. Since I generally walk fast, I ended up ahead of the rest of the people on my bus from the very beginning, which mean that for a few minutes, I was standing on the wall alone, with no one else in sight. I looked down and had a hard time believing that those were my feet on the Great Wall of China. TV documentaries and elementary school history books don't hold a candle to standing on the Great Wall with my own feet. It was a warm, hazy day, so visibility wasn't the best--pollution is bad here in China--but the Great Wall was visible along the mountain ridge all the way to the horizon. "Great" is no understatement. I started to walk, stopping several times along the way to take pictures and pinch myself that I was really there.

A few people from my bus caught up with me when I stopped for a break--a woman from Scotland on a year-long backpacking trip, a couple from Holland in China for three weeks, two friends from Sweden who came to Beijing on the Trans-Siberian Railway. I envied all of them a little but also remembered that my almost two years in Korea is my own adventure and that I'm more than happy with my life. Still, I enjoyed talking with all of them and listening to their stories about their travels. Sometimes I walked along with one or more of them, and sometimes I walked along alone, as I alternated between stopping to take pictures and walking briskly. It was just the right mix of pleasant company and solitude for me. There were other people along the way--very persistent souvenir and water peddlers who carry their merchandise in backpacks and tote bags and follow hikers along the way. I bought some postcards and an "I climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt. I also caught up with and passed a tour group who had started an hour earlier but were walking considerably slowly.

It was such a thrill to spend a day on the Great Wall. Parts of the wall were in pretty serious disrepair. It was even reduced to rubble in a couple places. I guess it's hard to maintain something that is 6,000+ kilometers long and on top of a mountain. There were little lizards along the way, and a lot of insects, including a contemplative-looking praying mantis and a centipede about the size of my finger.I made it back to the bus by 1:30 PM. Even though it was a moderately strenuous hike with a lot of stairs to go up and down and up again, I was surprised that it wasn't more difficult. I wasn't physically tired at the end, but my cold medicine was starting to wear off, leaving me with a headache and a very runny nose, so I wasn't and too disappointed to head off the wall and down the mountain and just sit until the rest of my group showed up. I went to a restaurant and ate some watermelon and apples and drank cucumber juice until it was time to go. I took some more cold medicine and slept most of the bus ride back to Beijing, waking up occasionally to look out the window and see the mountains gradually disappear and the countryside become suburbs become city.

I arrived back at the hostel at 6 PM, took a shower, and checked my email. Then I took a walk around my hostel's quirky neighborhood and got some dinner--stir-friend bacon, veggies, and rice cakes--too salty but okay. I walked back to the hostel, stopping at a small grocery store for some green apple flavored Miranda and some tissues. Between my runny nose and China's complete lack of toilet paper, my supplies were dangerously low. Now I'm back at the hostel, sitting on my top bunk, drinking my green apple flavored Miranda, and contemplating bed time, even though it's only 9:30. I'm tired and really feeling my cold--sore, swollen lymph nodes, runny nose, and all. It was another good day in China, so hard to believe that I'm actually here.

Agenda for tomorrow: visit another part of the Great Wall, the Ming tombs, a jade factory, and a Chinese medicine practitioner (maybe he can give me something for this cold).