Sunday, June 19, 2011

Great Wall, Great Day

Fried dough. Hop in a van. Head to the Great Wall of China.

Street food. Buy tickets. Ride ski-lift to the Great Wall of China.

The Great Wall of China (more like the Insanely Epic Wall of China) is just as majestic and mind-boggling as one would expect. We climbed heaps of stairs - little steps, normal steps, huge steps - only to find a sign not too far in that said, "No Further Entry." We didn't listen.

Past the sign was a section of the wall where only the adventrous travellers venture off to. Not fixed up, and covered in overgrown greenery, we hiked into the unknown. The trail was tough, one wrong step and things could go bad... but the view was the most visually stunning thing I've ever seen. Looking out on a small part of the 12,600 km World Wonder, I thought about the men that built it, and how our species can do whatever we set our mind out to do. If man could do this, what can I do with my life? Hopefully something remotely as profound.

We hiked for awhile, sat, separated to contemplate life, and then met back up later to take the Tobagan down. On the way back to Beijing, we stopped at a Tea House - the tea was good, but it was a government run store, so we refused to buy anything. They weren't happy.

Upon our return to Beijing, we met up with Stephane and got a damn good dinner. He paid... thanks Stephane! We also grabbed some random skewers from a street vendor, not knowing what we were getting. The only bad one was this nasty grey tofu. Blech.

Michael and I then ran back to the room to change into our clubbing clothes that we bought. Lookin' fly, we met back up with Karen and Stephane, bid him adieu, and ran to meet Tim and Amanda at the metro. We metro'd to an area for which I forget the name, and went to The Smuggler's bar. After a Whiskey and Coke, two Cocaine shots, and a Blue Kamikaze shot (they had Blow Jobs), we grabbed some skewers and amazing bread from vendor nearby and ran to Destination - Beijing's best LGBT night club. It was frickin' epic. There were tons of different rooms - lounge areas, small dance floors, a big dance floor, and a few bars. The music was great, the lighting was intense, and the mojitos were the best I've ever had. After a damn good night of fun, we went back to the hostel and collapsed.

What a day. Best twenty-four hours of the trip, hands down.

Unrenovated part (this is the good section of it) 

About to collapse at any second 

Renovated side (see the difference?) 




PS - That was much better, thanks. =)

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