Best Week of my Life? (If not, its definitely top 3)

So, this past week, myself and various others from the Shiyan crew embarked upon some wonderful travels. I can't imagine fitting all of the stories and photos into one post, so I will try to give the summary here, and perhaps include some photos in later posts.

Last Friday, Trent, Angelyn, Jessica, John, Megan, and I boarded a train to Beijing. If you have never travelled by train, it is an interesting experience. Since we had hard sleeper tickets, we had a relatively comfortable ride that included some friendly hangout time as well as the Name-that-state-capitol game (thanks for the road map cards Darla!). Soon after the commencement of our railway shenanigans, we were interrupted by close to 30 Eastern Europeans who entered our sleeper car. While we were rather excited to see other people who looked like us, they were clearly not as excited to see us. One woman approached us (six of us were sitting on two bottom bunks that we had tickets for). The interchange went something like that.

Hungarian Lady: "Excuse me, are your tickets valid here?"
Americans look at eachother with confused expressions
Hungarian Lady: "Do you speak English?"
More confused expressions: of course we spoke English...we were white and in China!
Megan: "Umm....yes"
Hungarian Lady: with apparent irritation "Well could you all go back to where you belong? We need room because we have many luggages"
more confusion

Unless the lady had wanted to leave all of her luggages in my bed, there was nothing more we could really do. She got the picture and left flustered. From then on, American/Hungarian relations were strained to say the least.

We survived the rest of the trip and arrived safely in Beijing the next day. Blessed with a blue sky and armed with a copy of John's trusty Lonely Planet book, we made it to the hostel and unloaded. After an ill-fated dining choice by a part of the team that included myself and therefore will not merit explanation in this blog, we met up at Silk market.

You may think that you have bargained before....in fact you may have done better than me, but the atmoshpere in this multi-tiered/multi-boothed bargaining behemoth of a market defies description to the average western audience. From shirts and North Face Jackets to pearl necklaces, to pipes to video games, there was plenty of opportunity to come away from beijing with some serious souvenierage. Regretfully, I was travelling with naught but a large backpack, so my purchasing options were limited. I could not, however, resist the prospect of a good poker set with clay chips for 90 Yuan (originally priced at 700 Yuan). which comes to about 13 U.S. dollars. Good deal if you ask me. After splitting up to seek out our bargains, we ate a glorious dinner at Subway and headed over to check out Mao's portrait and some other famous landmarks for the evening.

The Great Wall!!!!

The next day, we headed for the centerpiece of our majestic vacation: camping on the Great Wall of China. Our bus/car ride to Mutainyu (a section of the wall that is nice but not too tourist-infested) took us to the bottom of the mountain which was crested by the Wall. After lingering at some of the shops near the trailhead, our intrepid band of backpack clad Americans began ascending at a vigorous pace. 30 minutes later, we were catching our breath at the top of the first staircase which read (450 meters to the Wall). Having skipped the cable car in favor of hiking up the mountain, we soon realized that our ambitions were larger than our quadriceps.
Nevertheless, we reached the top of the mountain and walked the glorious few steps to mount the Great Wall.

Nothing can prepare you for an experience like the great wall of China (except maybe 3 hours a day on a stairmaster). But seriously, it is breathtaking. We tooked countless pictures atop the Wall and could barely contain our excitement. We walked around the wall for awhile, waiting for nightfall. While we planned to sleep on the wall, we weren't sure how technically legal it was. After most of the tourists left, we set up our 3 tents on top of the western-most tower that allowed foot-traffic. After a light dinner and some wonderful singing, we settled down for a rather chilly night atop the Great Wall.

The next morning, John and I hiked up a RIDICULOUSLY sloped section of the wall to a tower overlooking our campsite in hopes of catching the sunrise over the mountains. Although the dense fog left no sunrise to speak of, we got some cool foggy shots. Nothing quite like waking up before sunrise on an ancient monument like the Great Wall! After breaking camp, we walked down to the far end of Mutainyu, where there is a LUGE track you can take to the bottom of the wall. The 40 quai was well worth it. At the bottom, us boys chowed down on some amazingly delicious banana chocolate pancakes while the girls sought out a cafe for some much-needed caffiene.

While in Beijing I also visited the Temple of Heaven and Behei gardens. Both of which were absolutely incredible. I'll leave it to the photo installment, however, and let the pictures speak for themselves. I have plenty more stories to come, especially from the second half of our trip, but I fear that I must go and plan a lesson for my class tomorrow. I promise I will blog again soon, and hopefully get some pictures up. In the meantime, take care back home and I will talk to you all soon!

-Finn