Day 1 (Shanghai) -> Day 5 (Gubeikou)

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Shanghai 20 Junio- Dia 1
Llegada a Shanghai porfiiiiin! Increíble sensación salir del avión y ser invadido por una cultura completamente distinta a la de America. Me meto al Metro y me dirijo a mi Hostel donde me reuniria con Leonardo y Bean. En el metro me doy cuenta, al mirar a la gente,que soy el único turista jajaja o así parece. El transporte en el Metro fue fácil...lo complicado fue llegar al Hostel. Al salir del Metro anduve caminando por 30minutos buscando a alguien que me ayudara con la dirección. Nadie hablaba ingles, ahí fue cuando me entro lo difícil que iba a ser viajar por China

Shanghai 21 Junio- Día 1
After a pretty bad night of sleeping (waking up every hour due to jetlag) the morning finally arrived. My first official day in Shanghai!! Breakfasts in Shanghai and any other big city in China are a quick bite to eat on the side of the street. There are no sit down restaurants where they bring to you a breakfast meal consisting of fruits, bread, meat or eggs accompanied with a fresh cup of coffee. Sounds like I am already missing that jajaja.
We visited the Shanghai Museum to get a bit more familiar with Chinese Culture. Here is where myself and Leonardo started realizing how Chinese people saw us as *celebrities*. As if they had never seen somebody like us before. This just kept on getting stronger as we started visiting more remote villages later in the trip. People routinely asked us to take pictures with them

Shanghai 22 July- Dia 2
The second day in the city. We received Vancouver rain today, and it lasted all throughout the day. Myself and Bean went to the biggest Buddhist temple, Jade Buddha Temple, for the first part of the day. Immediately when we walked into the temple an old Chinese woman offered if we wanted to write Ancient Chinese Scriptures in a piece of paper with ink and a brush! It would be an hour of work..it took us 2 hours jajajaa. I found it to be a meditative practice and started getting familiar with a couple of the standard Scriptures.
Throughout the rest of the day we walked around Shanghai. Leo and I started getting into the practice of saying hello "Nihao" to all the people in the street. Amazing how happy the people get when you say a simple word to them. That's one of the things I am loving deeply about China. They are extremely stress free and much more presently aware. And this keeps on getting stronger as you leave the city.

Shangai -> Beijing 23 July-Dia 3
The bullet traiiin! We took the bullet train which goes at 280km/hr to Beijing. We almost did not make it to the Train in time. We managed to get inside the train as the doors where closing. Running with a full pack on our backs through the metro was a one of a kind experience. Getting stronger leaner and fitter as the days go by 😉
We where welcomed to an extremely polluted city, where you could not even see the sky. We had originally planned to stay for two days in Beijing but things took a different turn by the end of the first day.
The place where we stayed for the night was located in a section of the city with constricted alleyways. Walking through them was amazing. As we walked, above us waa a huge tangle of wires which would bring confusion to any electrical engineer jajaja. There where local Chinese men walking with almost nothing on which highlighted the atmosphere of walking in a traditional/local Chinese neighborhood.
As we walked we encountered an old Chinese couple who invited us to their house. It was a house with literally two rooms, so small that they had all the walls filled with stuff. There was barely any space left to sit. Sitting and eating peanuts with an old Chinese couple, making funny hand and body gestures to make yourself be understood was AMAZING. Bean was doing all the actual talking.

Beijing-24 July- Dia 4
Today we had some amazing dumplins and liver soup for breakfast. Riquisimos!
Heading out to visit the city of Beijing we went to the most famous location, The Forbidden City. Since it was Sunday it was extremely busy and throughout the walk it was as if we where all cattle walking together between two massive walls and through impressive temples with shiny green tiles.
At the end we where exhausted by the sun and pollution. Literally you ended up feeling dust in your throat and I started coughing like crazy when we where waiting for the bus to come pick us up. That was when the three of us realized we where quite tired of the cities and it was about time to head to the rural parts of China!

Heading to the Great Wall of China in Gubeikou- 25 June- Dia 5
We woke up excited to be leave the City. Excited for something new. Excited to sleep in the great wall of china. After 9 hours we where still in Beijing and we had literally done nothing. It was 3pm and we had spent all day doing errands which where never successful. We traveled all across the city, to the only outdoor store in Beijing, to figure out that the government prohibited the selling of gas to use in a stove. Oh well...now we are carrying two stoves with us which we brought all the way from America....for no reason.
We finally caught the first bus out of Beijing in the afternoon, a bit worried since we where not going to make the second bus to Gubeikou. The bus dropped us off and we where immediately approached by a random Chinese guy who offered us a ride to Gubeikou. We negotiated the price a bit and off we went! This ride was quite exciting I have to say. The driver was a bit reckless and made us wish we had a seat belt. Throughout the drive we realized that the smoke in the air was not receding and we started to think it was just Fog because you didn't not feel it in the throat anymore. But after asking we later realized it was still the polluted air.
Arriving at Gubeikou finally, we where dropped off in the city center. Immediately when we get off the car we are approached again by a random Chinese guy. Nobody speaks English so myself and Leonardo wait anxiously for the translation (**this is basically what we have to go through every time**) If you travel to China you better know Chinese!! Or a bit at least... The person just ended up giving us a lot of advice on where to camp and how to get to the Great Wall. This is something I want to highlight about China in comparison with other places I have visited. Most of the times we have been approached by people who just want to give us advice and help us on our travels. They never approach us to sell us a product or to take us to a place for money!!!! Son increiblemente amigables!
After having a nice meal at a local restaurant we head off around 10pm to look for a place to sleep. With a determined mindset to sleep in the Great Wall of China, we hike for around 2 hours to the top of the great wall. Dripping with sweat we set up the tent on top of a tower. And slip our sticky bodies into the sleeping bag, thinking of the view we where going to be welcomed by tomorrow morning

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