Part Deux: The Great Wall

After talking with some Beijingers, Neal and I decided to take their advice and head out on the 6 am bus to the Great Wall. That meant getting up a little after 4 am and rolling out of Josh's apt. around 5. We jetted out on the subway which was unsurprisingly empty and arrived at the bus depot around 5:45 am. We waited around a while before Neal jumped up and asked some women in uniforms what the deal was. They just said that we had to wait. So, we waited until the ticket office opened at 6:30 am and then we bought our tickets. Of course, I had to go to the bathroom, so I attempted to ask one of the bus drivers where the WC was. He laughed at me, said that my Chinese was horrible (in Chinese, btw), and then told Neal that it was down the way. Well, we didn't find it and I opted to take cover in a bush/tree and relieve myself. After a short scare that the bus had left during this quest, we managed to find the bus and get on. At 8 am or so, the bus was full and we could leave. While we waited, I had a nice little conversation with some people from Ecuador who are currently living in Holland. Four hours later we were in the parking lot of the Simatai seciton of the Great Wall. Here is a pic. of the map at the bottom of the climb:

Part way up the climb (we are climbing the section opposite what you see here, but it is pretty much the same):

This climb was definitely interesting. In several sections the steps are only as deep as my foot is wide. I had memories of my climb up the Eiffel Tower-- I was holding onto the wall to help steady my mind. It was a bit scarier coming down the steep sections that trucking up them. What I found quite surprising was that there were hecklers up on the wall. I was approached about 8 times to relinquish custody of my water bottle which I refused to do for the entire hike up and back . . . as fate would have it, I left the darn thing on the bus when I got off!! Anyways, here is another picture from the end of the "legal" section of the wall (you can continue past the warning sign if you are willing to pay the 200 RMB fine which, I might add, is a pretty small amount if the purpose really is to deter the determined)

According to the guidebook, the hike should have taken 3 hours up and 3 more back. We were quite proud that we did it in about 3.5 roundtrip and even had plenty of photo opportunities!

When we got back down the mountain, we stopped at a restaurant to have some sweet and sour cabbage, rice, lots of water, and Cola-- a small snack as we had plans to go to a duck restaurant. Plans changed and I think that we ended up at Pizza Hut. Call me a loser, but it was heavenly. If Weihai had a Pizza Hut, I think I would be broke right now-- it is quite the ritzy place here!