The Amazing Great Wall

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So another trip to Beijing. The main purpose for this trip was to go and see the great wall in all it's glory. Adam and I set off on our first morning to find the bus that would take us to the Great Wall at “Badaling” which is the most visited and photographed part of the wall. So finding the correct bus to such a tourist spot should have been easy right? Well as always in China nothing is easy but eventually after a little bit of conversing and decision making with a Welsh guy and his Chinese/Canadian girlfriend we figured we were on the official bus and we weren’t being scammed!

The drive up to the wall was spectacular in itself then after an hour on the bus we got there and got out of the bus and were hit with a harsh cold wind. So in the lonely planet (the popular travel guide book) it says quote “Unless you visit during the bitterly cold days of winter, however, don’t anticipate a one-to-one with the wall and prepare for...squads of tourists”. Well as we went at the start of January we really did visit during the bitter cold days of winter. It was absolutely freezing (zoom in on the photos and notice the pink faces due to the cold!) But it was definitely worth it, as you can see from the photos there were no crowds and we got some lovely shots of the wall without the mass of people that are always present everywhere in China! As we took in the breathtaking views walking along the wall we actually forgot about the cold. It really is fantastic to see, I have only included a small selection of the photos and to be honest they don’t even really do it justice, to see it in real life is truly spectacular.

This weekend we went to Beijing happened to be Adam’s birthday so after some cake in the school before we headed off, we then celebrated properly in Beijing with a night out on the town! We met two Norwegian guys in a bar and then after a few drinks we went clubbing (with me and Adam getting lost along the way as the taxi man didn’t know where we wanted to go, eventually got it sorted with a lot of phone calls; without the language sometimes it can be very hard to communicate!) It was a fun night didn’t get back to the hostel till 5am and the club was still going when we left, don’t know if there is such a thing as a closing time?!

Next day we just relaxed and went to a Korean Barbecue restaurant for dinner which was delicious, however it did have very interesting things on the menu-see photos!!! Then we met up with Erin and David (from America) two of the previous teachers who had taught in our school and had a few drinks with them and shared our stories. I had a cider for the first time in China (which I was very excited about!) only in a bar in Beijing would you get a cider. However, it cost me almost five times the price of a beer so I savoured it and only had one!!

Then it was back to Tangshan. For once this is only a short blog, I’m just going to let the photos do the talking! Coming up very soon is my blog about my week in Shanghai for Chinese New Year which was brilliant!

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