You Don't Sign Waivers in China

Week one of China: Complete!
and boy did we end it off with a bang!

Arose bright and early at the ripe old hour of 6:30. I woke up at 4:30 because some people were screaming outside and then I didn't think I even fell back asleep, but suddenly I was waking up to our wake-up phone call from downstairs! Bizzaro-world!

We rushed around to get ready to leave our hostel by 7:00 so we could get a good breakfast at the hostel we were leaving from. We got there a bit after 7 and our bus was leaving at 7:30. Stu ordered his food and everyone elses food was coming out except for his. 7:30 came... and went... and still Stuart's food hadn't come! (I just ordered toast because I knew it was busy and the odds of me getting my food quickly were good).
They started rallying people up for the bus and I said to the girl "Either give us our food or give us our money back!" ... and so she gave Stuart cold sausage, bacon and untoasted toast (aka bread). hahaha.

The ride to the Great Wall was LONG! We were in a very cold/very hot/very cold old bus for about 3 hours before reaching our destination.

Wait wait wait, let me back up. I want to tell you about the Great Wall tour that we chose.

It's through this hostel nearby that has a tour called the 'Secret Wall'. It's up way way in the mountains on a single file dirt path and then you get to an unrestored part of the wall that you climb for, well, a long time before going back down on the other side to a small mountain village and having an authentic village meal prepared for you.

Sounds cool, right? Almost too cool to be true?

It wasn't! It was exactly what it said! It was totally awesome!

We met some really nice people. Well, some weird ones, too. Naturally.
There was a couple we were talking to on the bus and they kept saying things like 'This reminds me of Nepal. Oh, Tibet. This path has been destroyed by tourists... blah blah blah' barf me.

There was a guy that kept fixing his weird hairdo, and a girl with very very hairy legs. But she was the coolest one of us all.

The way I see it, if you're a cool traveler girl and you're okay with not having shaved your legs in months and wear shorts proudly, you've got to be pretty awesome. And she was, naturally.

The climb was HOT and the wall was unstable in some parts, but that made it better! It was totally unbelievable how beautiful it was up there. Mountains EVERYWHERE. Our pictures totally don't do it justice at all. By the way, our tour guide was a 79 year old village woman with stamina like you wouldn't believe!!! The picture of Stu, me and a small lady in a trucker hat is her.

There was a guy at the top who was selling things. We wondered how on earth he got all that stuff up there and if he came up the wall every day. He was nice and hilarious. We've got a picture of him.

After our hike we went down to the village and had a vegetarian meal. They kept bringing out more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more food. It was totally awesome!

I slept the whole bus ride home. All of a sudden we were at Tienanmen square (right by our hostel). What a nice surprise!
Showered, and went to another smoken good place for dinner and had the same things we had yesterday, but even better!
There were some hilarious translations in the menu that will be pictured below... we laughed pretty hard.

Beijing:
Enough food to stuff 2 people: $7.00
Water: 2/1.5 RMB (22 cents for 2 bottles of water)

Tomorrow here is Dad's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

We might be on the road to Xi'an on your birthday in BC, but it's your birthday here tomorrow.

Anyway, that's all for tonight. We're just going to book a hostel in Xi'an (they all look totally sweet) and go to sleep! Goodnight!