The Great Fall on the Great Wall

Well, we've been off the internet for a while because our service was a bit limited over the past 3 or 4 days. But, we are back with another update of our adventures!

This past Saturday we had the opportunity to visit the Great Wall with our friends. It was amazing. If you ever make it to this part of the world, we highly recommend it! Our adventure began with us loading the bus and driving away. Then we turned around to go back because we'd left someoene behind. Oops.

The Great Wall is about an hour and a half drive outside of Beijing. It was nice to get away from the city for a while and see some of the countryside. But before leaving the city we drove past the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. It's excititng to think that just one year ago the city was buzzing with Olympic activity.

Once at the Great Wall we made a bee line for the bathrooms. On the bathroom door was a sign saying, "Bathroom is bad. Go west." Since we didn't have our bearings yet we depended on the Chinese-speakers in the group to help us find the west bathroom. Mission accomplished!

To get to the top of the Great Wall (which is on the ridge of a mountain) you have three options: 1. Walk, 2. Chair Lift or 3. The Gondola. As mentioned above, the Wall is at the top of a mountain; that ruled out #1 for us. I have a bit of a fear of hights, so that ruled out #2. We went the more expensive route and paid our 40 RMB to ride the gondola, or sauna as it turned out to be. The gondonla "pods" are small enough that you can only fit in four people. There are two very small windows, so on this hot day it felt like a true sauna inside.

Once on top of the Great Wall we began exploring. A group of us decided to go to the very end of this particular section, which involved climbing up. But, the Great Wall does not go simply up. It's built on a mountain ridge so it follows the ridge as it raises and falls. So, up and down we went. We found a lot of great nooks and crannies along the way.

At the end of this particular section is a long staircase that goes up, up, UP! We figured that we were still young and healthy, so up, up, UP we went... panting all the way. At the top of the long staircase was another shorter staircase, but this one was much steeper. Remember how Annie is afraid of heights? Yep, this was a challenge! At the top we enjoyed taking pictures. In one we posed as the attacking Mongols. (We later found out that the wall was built after Mongol attacks and to keep them out. It was the Manchurians who were able to surpass the wall. Oops.)

Getting to the top of this big wall was quite exciting. Looking down at how far we had to walk back was sobering. So, off we went. This time down, down, down. We weren't stopping to take as many pictures on the way back. Maybe it was because we were slowly becoming drenched with sweat. This doesn't look as good in the family album.

Our final destination on the wall was the Alpine slide that you ride back to the bottom of the mountain. Fun! When we were about a quarter of a mile away from the slide I mistepped and had a glorious fall. The Great Wall is full of uneven steps and missing tiles. I found a missing tile and rolled my ankle. Now the fun challenge was getting off the Great Wall after my "great fall" with an ankle that was continuing to swell. Thank goodness for husbands! Brian was on one side, I had the wall to lean against on the other. A few of our friends caught up with us and lingered behind too. What great friends! Eventually, we made it to the Alpine slide. You're not supposed to ride it if you are injured. The attendant noticed my limping and started to protest (I think) in Chinese. This was one of the only times I've been grateful not to know Chinese! My friend who did speak Chinese well said something to the man as I was pushing off and sliding off the Great Wall.

In the end, we made it back to the hotel, sweaty and a little dirty from falling flat on my face. I had to lay in bed with my foot up for a day, then was off for an x-ray the next day. Thank goodness nothing is broken! The friends who live in Beijing even had an extra pair of crutches for me to borrow. I'm still limping a bit, but on the mend now.

I still remember sitting on the floor of the Great Wall feeling quite stupid for falling down and telling Brian, "I need a good story for this because basically I just fell." Brian, mater of factly, looked at me and said, "Annie, you're on the Great Wall of China."

An Update from Beijing

Well, it's been a while since we've updated. It's difficult to capture all of the experiences that we've been having. Sometimes our two weeks in Beijing has felt more like two years. We've had the adventures and challenges of learning more of the language, getting around on public transit and the basic survival skill of getting food. Here's a little about what we've been doing:
Man vs. China: Maybe you've seen the t.v. show "Man vs. Wild?" In this the host is dropped off in the middle of a wilderness and must do what he can to survive. This is what has happened to us in some ways. Our leaders have wisely refrained from coddling us and showing us how to perform basic life skills. Yes, they've given us aids, but they've also just let us free to roam through Beijing, learning as we go.
Getting food has been an adventure. We were given a Chinese/English paper menu with many of the common dishes found in China. We were let loose on the restaurants around our hotel. Quickly, reports came back of the restaurants that had either an English menu or a picture menu. A few times we ventured into an unknown restaurant to find out that they only had a printed menu in Chinese. In these cases we held up the menu and asked in broken Chinese, "What do you have?" After a fun game of pointing, nodding and conferring with our dinner mates, we made our choices. We've yet to find something that wasn't delicious. Our new favorite food is a dish of stir-fried eggplant, potatoes and green pepper. Hao chi! (That's Chinese for "delicious!")
Shopping at the supermarket is another challenge altogether. We quickly recognize brands that can also be found in America: Dove chocolate, Oreos, Skippy, Lay's potato chips and Pringles. We've were also surprised to find products from Bimbo, a Mexican pastry company found throughout L.A. Once we pass beyond these recognized brands we have to resort to a new method we like to call, "What's in the picture on the package?" This was how we found strawberry-flavored Cheetoes! And, they were quite tasty! We've avoided anything that has a picture of a shrimp on it. Some recent fun finds have been: chocolate chip cookies with strawberries or cherries, crab flavored Pringles, chocolate swirled peanut butter, apple-flavored soda, and many more. We are enjoying trying the different types of Chinese snacks too. We're eating a lot of banana chips, dried hawthorne (also called haw fruit), coconut bread and little chocolate cookies that are shaped like mushrooms. They're the only mushrooms Brian will eat. :) In all our searches we have yet to find the elusive Nutella. We found a German version called Nussa but haven't tried it yet.
Please check out our webpage for additional updates and pictures. We'll continue with more of our China adventures in our next note…