The Great Wall was Great!

Our last day of school was Friday, and Saturday morning at 4am we were up and ready for our flight to Beijing. We were SOOO excited!

After an hour and a half on the plane, Zac and I arrived in Beijing. The taxi driver outside the airport approached us and said the drive to my friend Jon’s apartment would be 500 RMB. I almost paid this but thought it steep, so I called Jon to double check and he laughed and told me it would be anywhere from 70-150 RMB. So I grabbed another taxi and we met Jon and promptly got McDonalds – Zac and I were starving!

The three of us then did something supremely exciting – we took the bus about 3 hours North East of Beijing to a tiny little village where we slept in an adorable hostel right next to the Wall. In fact, the hostel has a part of the Wall as part of the hostel itself, and after a 5 minute walk through this adorable village street, we were on the Wall itself!

We got there late Saturday night and seconds after our taxi dropped us off a couple of other guys arrived – Canadians from Ottawa on vacation. I decided I couldn’t wait until morning to set foot on the wall, and the five of us went to the “Small Wall” – a little part of the wall still intact. It was dark and at times dangerous and narrow, but we did it and I loved it. Jon brought out some moon cake and we all had some on the wall on the eve of Moon Festival. It was pretty awesome J

The next morning the five of us set out after breakfast (noodles, just like they do it here) and went on the longer trail – the Sleeping Dragon. It was AMAZING. We set out about 10 am and arrived after a day on the wall at 4 pm. Zac did great hiking for a full day! The views were absolutely spectacular – the most amazing I’ve ever seen in my life.

That night we had dinner and chatted with all the other travellers. There were men from Holland, a couple from France with their baby (living in Beijing), a woman from South Africa (living close to Beijing for the year) and a couple from Germany. The next day we met a couple from the UK and US, as well as a bunch of others. We really enjoyed meeting so many different people from so many different places!

The next day we got up at sunset to watch the sunrise from the Wall itself. It was incredibly beautiful and just such an amazing opportunity! After a delicious breakfast we had some time to hike up the Crouching Tiger (in the opposite direction) before leaving to go back to the city. It was a totally different hike and it was really amazing to get the experience of doing so many different hikes at so many different times of day, away from the tourist-packed areas of the wall. The nature was incredible, the scenery was amazing, the company was awesome, the walks were fantastic - we loved everything about it :)