The Great Wall

Hey to family and friends. Winter is coming to China a little early. We've had snow last week, and we encountered some snow when we visited the Great Wall last Saturday. We took the train to Beijing and stayed at the Happy Dragon Courtyard Hostel, again. Its really a great place to stay when visiting Beijing. It is very cheap, and they have private rooms along with the dorm rooms. The private rooms are clean and comfortable, and the bathroom has a western toilet. They have a nice little cafe that serves western and Chinese food till 11 pm. Its a great place to meet people traveling from all over the world. We met people from Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Belgium, and Poland. Everyone spoke English to some degree. English is really an international language. Most people are very eager to talk about their experiences in China, the good and the difficult.
   We join a tour going to the Wall from the hostel. It was about a 2 hr bus ride to the Wall, which is west of Beijing. The bus driver was a maniac. He must have blown the horn 500 times. He wasn't stopping for anyone. It was raining in Beijing so the roads were wet, but that didn't slow us down. I stopped counting the near misses after ten. But we made it.
   As you would expect , the Wall is in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. It reminded me of the Smokey Mtns in NC. The rain had turned to a wet snow. It wasn't very windy, so it wasn't too bad.

This is view of the Wall from where the bus parked. We took a cable car ride up to the Wall. Thank goodness for the cable car.

Once up on the Wall, we had 4 hours to spend hiking. As you can see, the weather wasn't the best for getting scenic views. It started snowing and the footing was slippery. But there wasn't a lot of people there that day, so that was good. We hiked the whole distance you can see in the photo below. The Wall goes farther, but its not in good condition, so it is closed to tourists.

Every quarter mile or so there would be a guard tower. I can't imagine what is was like to live in these  buildings. Lonely, hot/cold, and probably hungry, and they didn't have the tourist vendors around to sell them drinks and snacks.

This is the last leg of the climb. Watch tower 23 is at the top of these stairs. That's as far as we could go. It is a killer climb.

 We made frequent stops to catch our breath. 

The last few yards to the top are very steep. You feel like Rocky running the steps of the Philly Art Museum.

Once at the top, it was time to rest and take a few pictures. Here we are on watchtower 23...happy that the hard part was over, we thought. It was starting to snow a little heavier, so it was time to head back to the bus. It was downhill most of the way. I think that was harder on knees than going uphill. But we lunch was waiting us, so that was incentive enough for me. 

We wanted to give our son, Brian, a Happy Birthday card from the Great Wall...

It was a great day on the Great Wall, even with the weather. We met some really nice people and climbed the Great Wall. Sweet.

Group trip to Beijing...then Halloween

Da jia hao!! Hello everyone!! Hope you all are getting ready for Halloween. We are reading about Hurricane Sandy coming up the east coast of the US. Hope you all are safe and dry. To all our friends and family in the northeast, we are praying that the storm isn't as bad as expected.

Our boss, Emily (Shi Wanyun) took us all to Beijing for the weekend. She wanted to show us some of her favorite places in Beijing. We went to Fragrant Mountain, the National Symphony, and Ti'anamin Square. The National Symphony is a very beautiful building. It looked like a big bubble. The music was very good. It was a good night.

In Ti'anamin Square there were many people taking photos. Yes, Marianne was the subject of much attention. Our boss, Emily and one of our colleagues, Mickelle are standing in front of the big flower pot. As you can see, the air quality was not very good that day.

We wanted to up in the building with Mao's picture, but there was over an hour wait to up there. We decided the view wouldn't be that great because the air was so bad that day.  So we went to lunch at TGI Fridays, heaven on earth...western food. It was great. The restaurant was in a fashionable part of Beijing. Here was a nice coffee shop with a great slogan.

Here was some great statues. Look at the size of their feet...amazing.

Our last stop before going back to Baoding was at Jenny Lou's. The store is located near the embassy section of Beijing. This store carries many imported foods. Here we are ready to go in. We brought extra shopping bags to haul back our goodies. I finally got some hot sauce for my next batch of hot wings. We filled our bags and then headed back to catch our train to Baoding.

Halloween Party

We had a Halloween Party for the students. We had explained Halloween to our students over the past week. So when we had the party we had a great turnout. I dressed as a pirate, my true calling. Actually it was the only hat I could find that would fit me. Marianne had a great mask that was very girly. Once some of the girls saw it, they all took turns wearing her mask. Here are some photos of the party.

The girl to my left is wearing Marianne's mask.

I had class today with some of these students and some of them still had paint on their faces. Yes, they were the boys.

We have been following the news about Sandy. We have been concerned that our family and friends were ok. We are praying that NJ, NY, PA, and other states affected by the storm recover quickly. Good to see people helping each other, working together.