Hong Kong

I touched down in Hong Kong around 9pm then got on the airport bus to the city. Compared to mainland china it was like going 20 years into the future!, the airport was amazing, the bus was amazing (and the prices showed why) and my hostel was located in-between a Louis Vutton and Gucci store. After finally being able to get on facebook after two weeks to tell people I was still alive I went to bed, ready for a big day ahead.

My main plan in Hong Kong was to find a cheap phone while walking around the city, as you all know I cant just buy something on a whim I knew today would be window shopping and taking prices, then tomorrow I would actually buy one. When I got back to the hostel to read reviews on all the phones I might buy I ran into a 39 year old American who sat down next to me with a handful of beers which he was pounding down, I even got the " aren't you New Zealanders known to be great drinkers? your being too slow, finish up!".

Before I knew it we were walking through the streets bar hopping and talking shit. We ending up talking with this stuck up brit who I hated more than Geoffrey from Game of Thrones!. He was actually ok at the start, but the American I was with just rubbed him the wrong way (no surprise, the American was very loud etc). The Brit did give some good insight into why Chinese are buying all the houses in Auckland among a lot of stories which reminded me that people really only care about money and nothing else (he was a investor/money launder). Later on the American and I went to another bar where we met up with some English doctors/teachers that were there for a conference, these guys gave me a little more hope for humanity after the last guy. By the end of the night we were drinking with the dean of a medical school in England. The night ended with the American getting too drunk and the dean and taking him back to his room. In the morning he found me and asked how he was so plastered but I was fine even after we drunk the same amount. I replied I was a Kiwi ;).
The next day I found the phone I wanted (Nexus 5), jumped back onto the Airport bus and found my way to Bangkok!

Last night in Beijing, Party Time!

As you would already now, this is the night I got my phone stolen!, lets elaborate.
So on this day I changed hostels to a slightly more party orientated one, knowing that since it was my last day I wanted to go out. Lucky for me, the instant I got in, I met a guy that I had met in Shanghai! so within a few minutes I latched onto him and his group of friends. In the day we planned to go to a few more temples until it started to absolutely pour with rain, so instead we went to this place called the silk market. This place is widely known as the upper class black market...market?. Once there we realised what they meant. It wasn't some street market covering a car park or something, it was a 5 story high mall, where all of the goods were mainly knock offs!.
  

After a bit of shopping, we got back to the hostel and started on the beers while watching the movie "beerfest" since almost everyone was from Germany. One of the girls we were with had a friend in Beijing and had sorted us a club that let foreigners in for a few dollars for unlimited drinks so after the movie we headed our way down to the club. Once in there we found out the club was on something like the 30th floor in a sky scraper, overlooking all of Beijing!, I took some photos with my phone buuuut never got to see them.

 We ended up staying till closing because it was so good. Once we got outside I was bumped over by a guy in the street and fell to the ground, I didn't think much of it at the time until around a minute later I went to check my phone and it was gone! that checkey prick had some moves. Sadly this ruined my buzz for the rest of the night, but there's much worse things than getting your phone stolen!


Anyways, the next morning I had an early bullet train booked to Shanghai which I only just made and once there I just did some washing/had an early night etc since the next day I had a flight to Hong Kong.

Great Wall of China (secret hostel run part of the wall)

After seeing the very touristy part of the wall, which was completely reconditioned I thought it would be good to go to a part of the wall that wasn't. the hostel I was staying at had a tour that said it would take you to a part of the wall that was a mixture of touched and untouched wall where only they were allowed to take people (I'm guessing while it was being fixed).

This was muuuch more expensive than the other part I had seen since it was in the tour, but once again the wall was the only reason I was there, so I may as well see as much as I could of it. Once there, I saw that the money was worth it. No one was there but us!, the start was fully rebuilt, but the further you walked the worse the condition of the wall was. I walked past the builders who were rebuilding the wall, and once past them I was completely alone (I quickly raced ahead of the pack I was with).

Great Wall of China (Badaling)

Now we're talking about it!, going to the wall was the sole reason I came to China, in fact when I almost decided to skip it the wall was the only thing that brought me back. I ended up going with this really hippy 30+ year old woman from England who loved talking about organic food, clothes etc..blah blah, but it was cool to finally actually go to an attraction with someone. We got on the train and after a few delays we got there around 9:30/10:00?. It was probably a bit late, but it was the first train there and I didn't know where the bus stop was to get there earlier!.

Anyways once at the wall you have two choices, left or right. From reading about the wall on the internet the night before it said to take your pic and try walk to the end, but after turning left (the one with much less people, I decided that the article must have been made by an old lady on her last legs or something. within maybe 1/2 hour I was at the end staring at a big concrete wall saying to go no further. Now I'm guessing this might be where Courtney and Todd jumped the sign and kept going? but I didn't bother, the wall beyond here had metal railings all over it and looked pretty poos so I turned around to try start on getting to the end of the other side of the wall. By this time the girl I was with couldn't keep up, saying the polluted Beijing air had given here asthma or something so we said our goodbyes and I started to jog up the other side of the wall.

 
After a while I was maybe quarter way up the wall when I arrived to a cool little luge thing (hard to explain, look at the pictures), which I had heard about but not read about. from where it looked liked it finished I decided to jump in as by my calculations it would skip half the wall and get me close to the end where next to no one was.

Boy was that a mistake! the actual ride sucked for one, then when I got off and went to climb back on the wall I was told it was an exit only and that by going down the luge I had exited the wall. Needless to say I was steaming! that little luge cost me about $10 and all it did was kick me off the wall!. After politely yelling at a few people they let me back on the wall without buying a new ticket, as long as I bought another ticket to use the luge to take me up the wall to where I started. SO after all that I got back to where I started, $20 bucks poorer and feeling very ripped off!. Oh well, back to the hike!. In parts the walk go VERY steep, I don't know how people do this in winter, there are parts where instead of stairs, the wall just inclines to maybe 20-30 degrees with only a metal bar to help you, even with my shoes on I as slipping and sliding in places, in winter all of this would be covered in ice!. The further I got, the less people there was and by the time I was near the end of the other side no one was to be seen which was great!, this is what I had been wanting to do since I started the trip, the feeling of just being by yourself on the wall was definitely a highlight of my life.