DFCN - August 04

08-29-04

Today my mother and I went to the Great Wall at Huang Hua which is the same wall we went to with Mauricio, Andres and his girlfriend just before I left for the U.S. at the beginning of August. I decided to take her there since it is one of the prettiest places to go in the area. We left early in the morning on a taxi that took us to the bus station where after a 2 hour ride we got to Huarou, the same little town where we got to last time. Once there, we met up with my friend the cab driver who took us to a restaurant near the wall. We ate, had some water, conversed a little, and then started climbing.

Three hours later we came back. My mother had loved it. As opposed to the days before, today was clear of clouds, pollution and sand just as the pictures below. Tired but not exhausted, we took the bus back to Beijing . At Lidu, we bought some DVD's to take back home, and then watched some at home. Sleep was our conclusion.

08-26-04

My mom got here a couple of days ago, actually just a day after I got back from DC. Time change has been rough on me. I go to sleep at 7pm now, and wake up at 3-4am which is rather uncomfortable. Other than that, we've only gone around Beijing for two days. The first day the weather was so bad we decided not to go to any of the temples or parks so we went shopping. Today, the weather was also pretty bad but we still went out on a long long bike ride around the city through Tian'anmen, Hutongs, Beihai park and more.

The plan is to go to the south of China next week, perhaps Guilin. "Paradise under heaven".

08-04-04 Today we went to yet ANOTHER great wall. Andres his girl friend Ana M, Mauricio and myself. We left at about 9am and got on a taxi which took us to a bus station. From there, an hour later, we were dropped us off at this random place where another cab took us to the location of this "not as well known" Great Wall. The day was as pretty as it hasn't been in a long time. Perfectly blue sky, no clouds nor pollution. We had a lunch in this family's house/restaurant/hotel, who was one of the driver's friend. We got there at about 11.45 and finished eating around 12.30 which is when we started walking up the mountain. In order to get to the mountain we had to walk over this type of small dam where the water fell more than 30 meters. After taking our shoes off and enjoying the cool refreshing water we kept going.

Well we after climbing and paying small tolls every 200 meters, we ran into this old lady that was selling fireworks for 20 kuais. That is, 20 little rockets for 20 kuais. We thought, "what the heck", so we paid the 20 kuais and watched the show. After explosions and much laughing, we kept going up until we reached the lower part of the wall. Some of it was in reconstruction, but there were no tourists other than 4 germans and us.
(photo: Andres)



Total time of the trip: 2 hours there, 2 hours back. Hike: 3 hours. Total Cost: about 50 kuai including food and transportation. Bus: 916 from Dongzhimen Station to the Huang Hua Chang Cheng.