The Great Wall of China

So on my first trip to Beijing, it was too cold (about 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit) so Vinny and I decided that scaling the Great Wall of China probably wouldn't be the best idea. However, I could not go to China and not see the Great Wall. After scoping out the weather forecast for a few days, Vinny and I decided to trek out on a Sunday afternoon.

It had been pretty humid the day before so we were expecting not so great weather but the Great Wall emperors decided to show us some grace and we had a beautiful partly cloudy day in the lower 70s. Perfect weather for hiking the wall.

We took the public "high speed" train (it really was more like an Amtrak train speed instead of what we had anticipated) to the Badaling section of the wall. A funny story, on the train, we watched as a young girl about 4 years old walked down the middle aisle of the train, stop 5 steps from the public restroom door and urinated right in the middle aisle. Vinny was appalled, he kept saying, "She was steps away from the bathroom, what a culture..."

Hiking the wall was actually quite fun, we entered in at the Badaling gate and hiked both sections (to our left and right) for about 3 hours. On the way home, instead of taking the train, we took the public bus home despite the urgent and persistent taxi drivers that kept trying to charge us 200 yuan when the bus tickets were only 10 yuan each. Overall, I can say I made it to the Great Wall of China and afterwards started to look forward to returning back to the US.