咏春! and the Great Wall

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Today I climbed the Great Wall of China! It was fantastic, lived up to the hype. The scenery was great, almost up in mountains, but it's not something to listen to me describe, just something that you have to do yourself! Quoting a sign from one of the many shops there, Mao Zedong himself apparently said: 'he who doesn't reach the Great Wall isn't a true man!' This was on a shop selling souvenir certificates, but still! :P Obviously we could only visit a small part of the ridiculously long wall - we went to the Juyongguan Pass, less than 2 hours drive from Beijing, the site of many great battles apparently... but my Chinese history is very sketchy. I'd definitely like to see other parts of it though, some of the parts without all of the tourists would be nice, although the higher we climbed up the hundreds of uneven steps the less tourists remained. We managed to lose all of the American tourists about half way up, unsurprisingly :P luckily there weren't many about anyway (there were a whole group of them at the Forbidden City; their tour guide compared one of the statues of a lion playing with a baby lion to an American playing with a basketball... what the hell!)

Went to the silk market for the first time afterwards. This market is apparently the 3rd biggest tourist magnet in Beijing after the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. That's quite sad really. I happened to be wearing my Wing Chun Kung Fu hoodie, and all I could hear as I walked about was Chinese people reading out: Yong Chun! They loved it! I'm definitely wearing that next time I go shopping here. I made friends with loads of the shop keepers (even ones I didn't buy from!), just knowing a small amount of Chinese makes everything so much easier. They're a lot more friendly and don't try to rip you off quite as much! One of them even gave me another (!) Chinese name! I must have about 6 by now. Still haven't decided on one :S But in China, naming a baby is a very big thing, so I can justify wanting my name to be perfect! I must admit though, I am always tempted to just name myself 李小龙 (Bruce Lee's Chinese name). Got some lovely hand crafts and spent an over an hour buying some kung fu slippers... you can't shop in a hurry here.

After some predrinking the the Uni bar (which we've started to call the SU!) we got some taxis out to a club. One of our Chinese friends knew the owner of 'Babyface' and he got us a VIP table with UNLIMITED alcohol! Not only that, but we had two women waiting on us all night at out table, making us new drinks and bringing us hot flannels and fruits! Best night out ever! Everyone there looked loaded. There wasn't much of a big dance floor, people danced more in their booths and around the club, I think this is more the style here, compared to a typical British club with some tables and a big dance floor. Got another taxi back where I chatted away to the driver in Chinese which I'm sure was right but he completely ignored me. I think it was because I was pretty damn wasted.. haha. The gate was locked to get back into campus so I could finally get some Parkour practise in!

We went to the Beijing Opera last night. So strange! The opera part was (i think) a man dressed as a woman, screeching like a cat... the second part was better, with acrobatics and comedy from mime. I would like to see it again, but only if it was the authentic version which the Chinese would go to see, as I think this was a special show for tourists and perhaps the quality suffered from that.

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Photos

The Great Wall
Can't believe I'm here!

Great Wall
Through one of the stone windows

Great Wall
Guard gazing at the hills

Peking Opera
Acrobatics, Martial Arts and Weapons