| May 24, 2005 - Great Wall = Great big hike...
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 | | Hiking the Great Wall! | | More Great Wall... | | Our Hutong away from home. |
| After a three hour bus ride from Beijing, we started our hike at Jinshanling (section of the Great Wall) and didn't quite know what we were getting ourselves into until we arrived at Simatai (destination section of the Great Wall) nearly four hours later!! Ah, the beauty of not speaking the language! The wall really is majestic - it twists through the mountains for seemingly forever and it seems you can see forever from it. It was quite a rigorous hike. Paul was in his Japanese tourist glory snapping photos from every angle. (I tease him that he is part Japanese.)
We stayed overnight in an amazing guest house in Simatai and could look up at the wall from the wooden deck.
We arrived back in Beijing thinking we would fly to Hong Kong and then realized we had another day here. We moved to a "classic" Beijing neighborhood called a hutong. By classic I mean there are dusty little alleys with sets of double red doors guarded by stone lions. Through the red doors are courtyard homes. We are staying in one that has been converted to a guesthouse. It is awesome and much cheaper. Paul is loving eating "mystery meat" buns and hasn't even gotten sick *yet*
Ok, so TODAY we head to Hong Kong. Not my dream destination to spend my birthday but maybe Paul will buy me something nice. ;) |
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