Words Just Don't Do It Justice...

Even though it seems like I have been in China for about a year now, the time that I have left is getting less and less as the days go by. I need to get out and see more of the sites before I leave, and in order to do that I need to get up early on my day off, spend twelve hours sightseeing, and sacrifice a little (more) sleep over the next few weeks.

Today was finally the day for me to embark on the Great Wall Journey. If I didn't do it today, who knows if I would have gotten an opportunity to see it before I leave. The weather was your typical China weather; hot, humid, polluted, and foggy. Not your ideal setting for a trip to one the world's most famous places to take in the view, but we had to go. It was now or never.

Everyone else that I know that has gone to the Great Wall before me has gone with a big group of people, everyone pitches in some dough and they rent a bus for the day. It picks them up at the hotel, drops them off, waits for them to finish, and then drives them all the way back to the hotel. Well, Sean (who is the Executive Chef at C.W. Post University in New York) and I didn't really have the luxury of going with a group of people so we had to do the trip the only way we knew how. Public transportation!



A cab would be far to expensive (it is about an hour and a half outside of Beijing), so a public bus was the only way for us to go. Was I nervous, yes. Did I have second thoughts when I arrived at the bus terminal and there were literally 1,000 buses waiting to depart, oh ya! Did this stop us from jumping on the first 916 bus we saw, hell no!!

The bus was clean, we got to sit with all of the cool kids in the back of the bus, and we made a few friends on the trip. But the best part was, with my Olympic credentials, we got the entire trip for free.

I started to feel good about taking the bus as we we left the terminal. We made a few stops in the city before heading East toward the Matianyu section of the wall. Next thing I know, Sean looks over at me and says, "What stop do we get off?". We looked around and realized that there was not one word of English to be found on the entire bus! Everything was in Chinese, and I really haven't learned enough Chinese to be able to decipher written words. Heck, I only know the words beer, hello, and massage. Luckily there was a nice young lady on the bus who noticed Sean and I crying in the back of the bus (just kidding), but she sensed our dilemma and came to our rescue. Her name was Tracy, and spoke decent English. She told us that she would let us know when our stop was. You see, the bus doesn't go all the way up to the wall, we were going to have to jump out and get in a cab to take us the 17 km to the wall. She sat and talked with us for a while, alerted us when our stop was coming, and even got us a car to take us the rest of the way. Only it was not a cab. It was some lady, driving an old, beat-up micro bus, with wood floors, and a carpet ceiling, and of course we jumped in. My first thought was that we were going to be sold into Chines slavery, and we would never make it home, but then I saw the LeBron James bobblehead on her dashboard, and my mind was put at ease. The best part was, she didn't speak of money, so we figured we would get this trip for free as well! Then, about 8 km into the ride, in the middle of nowhere, she pulls the van over to the side of the road, draws a circle on a piece of paper, and the number 100 on either side of it. Now, having played Pictionary on Nintendo for most of my childhood, I knew that she meant it would be 100 yuan each way, and she would wait at the bottom of the wall for us to finish. Of course we accepted. How could we not! We were two Americans in the middle of desolate China, we had no choice but to accept. She could have said a million dollars and we would have paid it because we couldn't be left for dead on the side of the road. Now that's what I call a bargaining tool!!

For those of you who may not know, the wall is built on the top of mountains. We had to take a ski-lift to the base of the wall from the parking lot. From here your only way up is to hike the stairs. I know what you're saying, a physical specimen like me should have no problem climbing thousands of uneven stairs on my through the twists and turns of the Great Wall. But, I'm sorry to let you down. It was rough!!! At times I wish I was back at work trying to communicate with my Chinese students, it was that bad. But all of the hard work paid off. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Let's just say that I have never seen anything else in my life quite as fascinating as the Great Wall. It was a great experience, I enjoyed every minute of it, and I would never do it again! My legs still fell like Jell-O.


Oh ya, and in order to get down the hill to the wall you got to ride a toboggan down the hill....