Great Crumbling Walls

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Our hostel here hosts this "Secret Wall Tour" where they guarantee you will be the only ones on the wall, so I signed up to go this morning. We had to meet at 7:00am for the bus pick-up and then crammed into a rickety mobile and bounced and jounced our way for two hours out of town. Passing through a run down village we picked up this ancient Chinese man and carried on for about 10 minutes out of the village and were dropped at the base of a hill. Because we were so out of town I actually experienced my first clear blue skies slightly scattered with white fluffy clouds. That alone was such a miracle.

We hiked up and up and up, seemingly nowhere, until suddenly we arrived at the base of the wall. The section we were exploring has never been restored, and true to word, we were the ONLY ones on the wall. It was such a profound experience to wander among the crumbling wall that has survived for centuries. Certain sections we would have to scramble up steep inclines, and it was so amusing to see our group panting and sweating and stripping down, whereas our guide was layered up with a wool sweater and jacket, probably 70 years old, and not breaking a sweat. After exploring for around 2 hours, we hiked down (and nearly tumbled down at certain parts) into the village. Lunch was provided for us by the one village restaurant. It was delicious, with a charming atmosphere of mangy cats running about and severed chicken heads handing above the chicken coop. We weren't quite sure what the rationality of the chopped heads were... if I was a chicken and had to stare at that all day, I would be suicidal.

Later on, after a nice long (and very necessary) shower some German gents and I decided to brave the delicacies at the Night Food Market. I can proudly state that I have now ingested scorpion, cockroach, grasshopper, and snake. All in all, the scorpion was probably my favorite. I impressed several Chinese ladies by my daring and willingness to taste anything. Another vendor gave me a deal because he loved my nose ring. Strangely enough, the ring has gained a lot of interest. Many people point and stare at it. Big hit apparently. Now I am having a beer with my fellow hostelers. Goodnight for now.

P.S. Easter was completely devoid of chocolate bunnies... good chocolate is non-existent here. Sigh.

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Comments

[LauraChina]

travel is an art
Hi dear, you must have an unforgetable experience here in Beijing. have you been to Nanluoguxiang(W#÷), you would love there. and also, there is an chocolate bar, somewhere in the Yandaixiejie(ߋœW), you can try. those 2 places are not far from each other. oh, if you wanna some culture experience you can also check this out: www.variarts.com