Andy and Mike were busy with their individual plans. Andy had an interview to conduct. Omar and I had plans to go see the Great Wall of China. We are starting to get the hang of getting around. It helps that I have a lonely planet guide that has the names of places which I can point to written in Mandarin. Besides that, it tells you which bus to get on etc. The public transportation in this town is great!
We grabbed some food, and I finally gave up on being vegetarian here, having starved, and stopped eating many vegetable meals halfway through realizing they had pork in them, or eating horrible, nutritionless garbage for too long. I already lost five pounds, so enough of that. The next areas we are going to in China as well as the next few countries will all be brutally tough to find vegetarian food in, so no more.
I started with a fish fillet sandwich at the McDonalds...
So...anyway, after that Omar and I head over to the metro, on to the long distance bus station and off to the first town on the way to the section of the Great Wall that we decided to visit. We stopped in the town and then hired a car to take us to the wall. It started pouring as we approached, but this was our one chance to see it. It actually worked out beautifully. We got there and it was pouring. After purchasing tickets we went to get on the cable car, but it was not running due to the rain. We didn't know how long it might be and we only had a few hours to check things out before it would close. So we decided to grab some junky umbrellas and walk up the stairs with our tired bodies. One step at a time we made it up to the top. The shops below as well as the drink sellers on the way to and on the wall tend to quote very high prices. ALl you have to do is tell then how much you want to pay and then walk away if they refuse. They would say something ridiculous like 15RMB for water, and I'd tell them I'd give them 3 and start walking away when they said no. There was hardly any customers there, so I got my water at the normal price each time. Omar and I made it up to the top and it was gorgeous. I thought the Forbidden City would interest me more than the Great Wall, but it turned out to be the opposite. The Forbidden City was very repetitive, whereas just driving up into the mountains then up the stairs to the Great Wall was an amazing site. It stopped raining as we reached the top of the Wall. The view all around was stunning. The wall wrapped over hills far into the distance as far as you could see. Layers of fog revealed mountains in the distance. The sun started to creep out from behind the clouds as we walked over many more steep steps, over the wall and made our way to the tram going down. We hopped on after a while, grabbed some quick souvenirs after bargaining the price way down (not down enough apparently) the same car that brought us there and hopped on the bus back the Beijing.
As we reached Beijing, satisfied that we had maneuvered our way around without Mike's invaluable skills and knowledge we hit rush hour. People were pouring out of buses and the crowds were quite amazing in their size. It still wasn't that bad getting to the metro and packing ourselves in to get back to our hostel, but it was interesting to see so many people. We walked back to the hostel, sat for a bit, then explored the many shops that lined the way to the music cafe we had been to the previous night. There was a Mongolian music performance there that night, so we decided to walk around there until then. Omar started playing different percussion instruments to the delight of a music store owner and his customers. I took some photos then head out to find an internet cafe to send out a birthday message.
I checked out the toy stores while Omar jammed and gave someone a tabla lesson. We ended up grabbing some seafood at a restaurant, before I went to the internet cafe and Omar went to see the show. I finished up at the cafe and went to the show also. The place was packed and I caught the last four amazing songs of the performance. I managed a sketch in the crowd, but I didn't see Omar or Andy. I bought the group's cd and returned to the hostel, where I met up with Mike and went to sleep.
