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.
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