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.

First few days in Beijing

Arrg, I hate when I get behind like this!. I really just don't want to write this but I will do my best.

So I got off the night train and checked into my hostel. My first day in Beijing was a national holiday (didn't know), so once I got to Tiananmen Square I was greeted with a two hour line to get in!, security and guards everywhere!

Once in I have to say I was pretty disappointed in the square, really was nothing to it, just a big concrete square. I guess I should have seen that coming, but after that two hour wait I think I was only there for 10 minutes tops, honestly I would never bother going back to that square. There was one positive to it though, since I had cleared security I didn't have to get into the Forbidden City line which was huge!, at least a few hours, maybe more.

The Forbidden City was much better, and the size of it really is hard to believe, maybe getting close to the size of downtown Mount Maunganui in area, it took me about 20-30mins just to walk down one side of it without stopping. I think the only thing that made the city less special for me was that I had just come from Japan. Come on China!, there are more colours in the world than black and red with a bit of gold, eeeverything looks the same after a while.

Once finished with the Forbidden City, I walked up one of the few hills in Beijing, which gives a great view of the Forbidden City and Beijing (since it's so flat). From talking with people I found out that I had arrived in Beijing right after a massive storm which had blown most of the smog away from the city. Lucky for me because while I was in Beijing I thought the pollution was fine.

 The next day I went to the Summer Palace, this is where I decided I had had enough of Temples, Japan really had spoilt me with them, now they all just look like run down, half arse buildings. No more Temples for me. The location of the Summer Palace was great though!, once again it was on one of the few hills in Beijing near water, back in the day the Royal Family would stay here for those same reasons. I found a great big rock at the top and settled in to read the last of my book IT from Stephen King.

 This is the view from where i read my book

Once finished I got on the metro and found my way to Olympic Park to have the look of the signature buildings from the 2008 Beijing Olympics that clogged up the Discovery Channel back when they actually had shows that wernt about fishing, mining and moon shine. Seeing these in person was a surreal experience and I think I liked it more than the Forbidden City!

Finally I got back to the hostel, made a few friends then had an early night, ready to see the Great Wall of China.

Xi'an and the Terracotta Warriors

Now i had a massive write up about these two places, like my experience on my first night train and everything! but screw it, photos only. Darn you Beijing pick-pocketer!

UPDATE; Ok well since im not doing much in Bangkok since im trying to speed up my wisdom teeth healing i thought i would come back and update this a bit.

These first few pictures of the caves/buddahs are from Longmen National Park which is inbetween Xi'an and Beijing. It was really cool but gees it was expensive compared to anything else i did in China!

Great views everywhere!

Beautiful place ruined but shitty dirty water etc...its the norm though

I get asked everywhere in China for pictures, anyone not chineese does, although i think the beard brought over a few more lookeylous. Sometimes i ask for a picture too if i know its not a scam.

Now heres the Terracotta Warriors. Its definitely brought out my young dream of being a archeologist!.

Everyone (and i mean everyone) was doing selfies here, so thought i would join in!

His face made me laugh, so took a photo

This is one of two bronze chariots just recently found (not that recent). They look much better in person

Soom nay people taking a picture of this guy, had no clue why you would bother. Chinese just take photos of everything!, so i took a photo of them taking a photo.

Heres the Xi'an Wall which encloses the old part of the city and is approximately 14kms long. This was my highlight for Xi'an, much better than the warriors!. You usually hire a bike at the top and ride around it, but i thought since i had the time i would just walk around it, which was a great choice, so much to see from the top.