Great Wall...Great Weekend

I had a Good China Weekend. 

I went to my TA’s wedding on Saturday…my first China wedding.  It was beautiful!

That night we rode our bikes to an Indian restaurant.  We took a wrong turn and a 20 minute bike ride turned into an hour-long bike tour of the city.  We saw some fun new things and got practice weaving in and out of heavier traffic, so that was good!  :)  And we were certainly hungry by the time we got to the restaurant!  The food was so delicious (hao chi!).

Yesterday, on Sunday, we went to the Huangyaguan Pass of the Great Wall.  It was a really great day!  When we got to the wall, we decided to buy trolley tickets and ride to the top, then walk down.  It sounded easy enough… 

Well, when we got to the top of the hill we realized that it wasn’t so much walking down the Wall as walking UP and down a mountain.  The first stretch was mostly uphill, so we were out of breath within 5 minutes... 

 

 A lot of this section of the wall has been restored.  There was one area that didn't have steps...just uneven rocks with a handrail on one side and caution tape and a mountainside on the other.  That part was really scary, hence me not having any pictures of it.  We walked up and down the mountain for quite a while, enjoying the scenery and taking pictures.  It's hard to believe human hands built such a massive structure... It is really amazing. 

 

Wall-climbing buddy

 

 So after about an hour or hour and a half of walking, we came to this point in the hike and realized we were going to die before we made it to the end...either by falling down a mountain or from exhaustion. 

 

 

(This isn't important information, but inside the tower at the bottom of this hill some guy had set up a creepy little souvenir shop...it was weird.) 

At the bottom of the hill we stopped to catch our breath and take a few pictures of my Toms on the Great Wall. We also got some pictures of people sleeping in random public places to add to our collection.  People in China (especially men) will sleep anywhere. 

We began the trek down the wall again, not sure how much longer until we would get to the exit point...if we made it to the exit point at all.  Then we came across a beautiful sight - horses and guides for hire.  There wasn't really a question of whether or not we would take a horse down the side of the mountain rather than continue walking.  Of course we were going to ride the horses.  There was one small problem, though... 

All of the tour guides were asleep.  Every single one.  The lady in the bottom right corner of this picture was actually snoring.  We walked up an I said "Ni hao."  No answer.  A little louder, "Ni hao!"  Only a snore in response.  My roommate Nzinga (who is walking up the middle of them in this picture), turned around in disbelief.  "NI HAO!"  Nothing.  Nzinga and I had a conversation in very loud voices and no one stirred.  So we stood there and awkwardly stared at them for what seemed like forever.  Finally I tried one more time.  "Ahem...Ni hao!"  A lady woke up and said something in Chinese.  "Blah, blah, blah, ¥100 each."  So I pointed to Nzinga and myself, "Liange ren, ¥100" (two people, ¥100.)  She and her friend laughed and she came back with ¥100 each...the original price.  Uh, no.  There was no way were were paying that much...and there was no way we were walking any further down the Wall.  I kept negotiating in Chinese (my teacher would be so proud!) until we agreed on a price.  I just learned how to say prices in Chinese class, so it was fun to use my language, limited as it may be! 

The horse ride was really fun!  We made it down the wall in a fraction of the time it would have taken us to walk. 

As fun as all of those things were, the most fun part of the trip for me was what came AFTER the wall.  When we got back to the bottom we looked around the souvenir shops, which all carry exactly the same thing (how do they all stay in business?).  We bought some dried fruit, but nothing else was worth buying.  We were looking for a place to sit in the shade and enjoy our snacks when a police officer motioned us over to the trolley where he was sitting.  He had us sit down and he proceeded to try to talk to us in Chinese for the next hour.  He didn't know any English, so we used what little Chinese we know.  He told us about the Wall (none of which I understood) and sang a song in Chinese.  He did a little war reenactment for us which was unexpected and really funny.  Soon another guy had joined us, and then another and another.  They knew about as much English as I do Chinese, so our conversation was really interesting.  We used charades and pointing and exchanged lots of confused looks. I was able to communicate a little bit, though, and we had such a great time!  I was surprised by how much Chinese I know!  (which still isn't very much, but WAY more than I knew 2 months ago.) At one point we met an English tour guide/interpreter.  Finally we had to go and the group disbanded.  It was so great to sit down with those people, try to use a language I barely know, laugh, and learn.  I loved having to think so hard and listen so carefully.  I felt so honored that they took the time to sit down and talk with us.  It was a perfect ending to a perfect weekend!