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Okay, I’ll write a shorter version cause I know I’ll forget all this. J and I had already decided that these were City Girls. We were wondering how they’d dress to climb the great wall. Well, when we meet them they’re all prettied up in makeup and wearing sandals. Not a good sign. They had rented a car and driver for the day but due to the fact that my book is in English and city names don’t translate at all, we had real trouble finding the part of the wall I wanted. There are two parts that the government wants you to visit. That’s not my style. I wanted to go visit the hard bits. So after bribing farmers to let us walk across their land, we find the great wall. It’s amazing to see it come into sight; it’s massive. The only man made thing to be seen from the moon and spreads for 4,000km. The girls only make it up the hill about 1km so we leave them and head off. We rush up about 3km of crumbling wall, really crumbling. I think the reasons that tourists aren’t supposed to go here is that it’s a sheer drop on one side and there’s no way you’d make it. We climb and climb and climb but eventually reach the watch tower we’re going for. The view is amazing. Really breathtaking. We take lots of pictures and head back to meet the girls.
After getting back to Beijing we head for dinner. The girls are in charge and we have them order for us. Plate, after plate, after plate just start arriving on the table. Some how they didn’t hear the word Don’t in my sentence. I don’t like fish cause a big one appears head tail and all. Ugh, but actually it was so spicy you couldn’t taste the fish anyway. There were some pretty exotic dishes on the table. I think the most exotic had to be Donkey. Yup, donkey. It tasted a bit like corned beef but I wouldn’t recommend it!
During dinner we were chatting about the differences between the west and east. Somehow I totally forgot how you're never supposed to talk politics in China and did. Not good, my questions regarding Mao, America, Hong Kong and Taiwan were answered but I didn't realize how uncomfortable the girls were getting. They went so far as to close the blind behind them! I dropped it as soon as I realized and profusely apologized, but certainly it showed the kind of fear associated with this stuff. Plus they had already answered everything, but obviously I can't write that here. Not until I'm in London anyway!
After dinner they offer to take us to a local student hang out. This place was exactly like any college coffee house I've ever been in. Lots of kids drinking overpriced coffee on laptops. Very authentic but it show's just how similar students are around the world!
We said our goodbyes and headed home. Phew! Okay, that was pretty rushed, but I think I got the main parts across.
Posted by Admin at June 13, 2002 07:54 PM