China.. a three part series

I'm gonna post these in three parts, because... well we were in China a while and this way you can read at your leisure.

Beijing!


We flew into Beijing from Tokyo and my friend Marc from NFTY was gracious enough to pick us up from the airport (awesome!) and let us stay with him and his girlfriend Veronica for the time we were there. It really makes such a difference to have local hosts who can give you ideas of what to do and what to eat( very important!). He showed us around his neighborhood and took us out for an awesome dinner, which ended up costing something insane like…$7.50… for all 3 of us.

The following day we headed out on our trip to the Great Wall! Marc has a friend who runs overnight camping trips to an unrestored section instead of the ‘Disneyland’ bits that most tourists go to. We showed up to our meeting point and found that the rest of our group was a whole family! They are from Vermont, their son and daughter-in-law are living in Seoul, so the parents and younger sister came and met them for a family vacation in China, Tibet and Korea (cool right?). They were a lovely addition, and it was totally fun to be a part of a family dynamic for a couple of days. Before and after we hiked out we had lunch at a local farmhouse (which was an unbelievable amount of food, and very tasty). Then we packed up our bags and headed out for a hike, about an hour, pretty straight up, but then there we were… right at the wall!

It wasn’t quite as peaceful there as usual, somehow a giant tour group was there that was repelling off the wall! (which is not only stupid, but also lame, it’s only like 20 ft. ) But, they were only there for a bit and we dropped our stuff off and went on a hike. The wall is lovely and majestic… it feels so grand when you are there. We had a great time scrambling up ruined staircases and on guard towers. You aren’t supposed to camp at the wall, but our guides have made a deal with the local village that takes care of this area. Ironically, I think because our campsites were set up there, some Chinese tourists set up camp right on the other side of the wall from us… which seemed fine until they were wasted at like midnight and one of them was standing on the wall singing, holding speakers with his headlight on strobe…

The next day was foggy, so the views weren’t clear, but it was still fun to climb around, then we headed down and eventually back into Beijing where Marc and Veronica and some of their friends took us out to K-TV! That’s Karaoke TV, the most popular way to do karaoke in Asia, they are often super fancy places where you get a room, a few microphones and a couple of hours to play around. Awesome! The following day we took it slow (not so much sleep at the wall) and just went to a couple of local temples. The Lama Temple is particularly interesting, as it is the seat of the living Panchain Lama… well… sort of. The last time one died and the monks in Tibet started looking for his reincarnation, China said, well, maybe we found him…and then Tibet found one… and then theirs disappeared…and there is only a Chinese one now. Oh China…

Our last day, for part one of Beijing we spent in Tiennamen square and the Forbidden City… well, the Forbidden City, as the entire square (which I think is the largest in the world) was closed for the upcoming May day holidays (May 1-3), oh China! But the Forbidden City was fun, and huuuge. We actually particularly enjoyed going up to a park right behind where you can get a great view (picture on the blog) it gives you a great sense of how big it actually is! The next morning we headed out to Xi'an.