The Great Walk on the Great Wall August 14th

In our bunk beds in our silk sleeping bags (hehe) after the great hike..





You might be able to see a person in the sky taking the flying fox..




Almost at the finish line where we were supposed to take the flying fox down above the lake.. That was a fun ride :)



















Oh and as you can see I did not have the best shoes to walk in that day.. But I had got real blisters from my other shoes, so I had no choice.. But It actually went really well with flip flops though..











The great walk on the Great Wall has begun..



Sevilla stepping out of the cabel car





Me and Joraan ready to walk on the Great Wall. We had to take, or we chose to take, the cabel car up to the wall. After all we were supposed to walk 8 km, so 30 min of not walking up to the wall did not bother us.. :P



To the readers of this blog: the first thing you have to do when you read my blog is to scroll down to the bottom of every inlay to know the beginning of that particular inlay (..just in case you hadn't noticed that..).. For some reason I wanted to do it in that style..?!?..haha..

After our sightseeing at Tian'aman Square and the Forbidden City we used the next couple of days in the city and to try and find our way on our own. We got to borrow a Lonely Planet book from a Swedish girl, Maria, that we got know at the hostel. She too could speak Chinese well. Thank god for Sevilla and Maria..hehe.. We actually managed to find the street we heard so much about that were known for good shopping. As we're walking in the street we randomly meet Maria, which was kind of funny when you think about it..Beijing so big and all.. So we decide to go for dinner.. at this Korean restaurant.. Yes!! Finally some good food.. I have to admit that I don't like the taste of Chinese food that much..

We also got to try some Chinese massage, which was good.. Though Maria experienced that her massage woman kind of made a move towards her..and also wanted Maria to take her to Sweden...haha.. Anyways, all three of survived the massage..

So, after those couple of days we decided to do the most important thing when you are in China: Walk on the Great Wall!

We had booked 3 tickets, for me, Joraan and Sevilla. We were all so ready and wide awake at 5.30 am, haha. We almost missed the bus that left 6.40 am. At least we got to warm up before the big walk by running to the bus stop.. It took 3 hours by bus to get to the starting point of the walk, and the walk was about 8 km long and started from Jin Shan Ling to Si Ma Tai.. *phew*.. It was a sunny and warm day.. HOT HOT HOT.. And as cleaver as we are we didn't have the time to eat breakfast (just a bag of potato chips..) and we managed to just bring 1 l of water, which is not enough for that kind of a hike on a day like that.. It is a wonder that we survived.. Luckily there were Chinese people who were selling water and sodas at each tower.. During our walk two Chinese women were following me and Joraan, helping us up the stairs, waiving with a fan etc.. And of course of the language barrier there was misunderstandings.. The reason why they were so "helpful" was because at the end we had to buy some souvenirs..though we kind of knew that they must want something in return. We never asked for any help from them, it was quite awkward in fact.. I bought some postcards from them so they would leave us alone. But all in all it was a really great walk, and I felt that I had accomplished something big when we sat on the bus back home..haha. When we came back we just took a long and hot shower and ate something and then went to bed. The next day were we going to fly to the next city on our route, Xi'an.