Goodness gracious, Great Wall of China!

This is a long post... We had a busy day! We only got four hours of sleep last night but we got up nice and early to go to the Great Wall. It was awesome!! However, it was was a little bit of craziness to get there. First, we go to the Beijing North train station and figure out how to buy a ticket on the S2 train. Then, we line up waiting to be allowed onto the platform. It is the first train out to the Great Wall for the day and at this point, we are one of the first people there and we have about 25 minutes until the train is scheduled to leave. However, more and more people start to come and they start getting closer and closer, moving the line up closer and closer to the platform gate. At this point I am so annoyed because everyone keeps inching and inching up and leaving little room for body space that I can practically feel someone's belly on my back. Will and I just don't get the seeming inability to wait in a line because how lines work in the United States, it doesn't matter how close your bodies are, you go in a place in the order that you line up. Well this is clearly not the case because in China, you get into a place as fast as you can push your way in. Everyone was cutting and pushing like it was the wedding dress sale at Filene's Basement. The second we were allowed onto the platform, everyone was pushing and trying to get ahead and get to the train. I mean pushing!! Even the elderly were pushed out of the way. Will and I were just baffled by this behavior and disgusted by how cut throat they were. Then, once everyone got onto the platform, people were suddenly running for the train. We were confused why everyone was running but decided to run too, soon realizing that there probably weren't enough seats on the train which is why everyone was so crazy. That ended up being true because although Will and I were able to secure a seat on the comfortable and air conditioned train, some people had to sit or stand in the aisles for the hour long ride.

After all of that craziness, we were happy to get to the wall. While there are many different sections, we went to the Badaling section because it was closest to Beijing, only an hour by train. The Great Wall was really beautiful, seemed to go on for forever, and was surprisingly steep at many points. It made every part of going to Beijing totally worth it!




After a few hours at the wall, we decided it was time to head back. We caught the same S2 train back but this time there were max 20 people on the train and when we returned to the station, all the departing trains weren't nearly as full as ours. Apparently everyone wanted to be the early bird that got the worm. Lesson learned: don't get on the first train of the day out to the wall.

When we got back, we decided to explore some Hutongs. Much of Beijing is surprisingly modern but the Hutongs are the old-fashioned, single level traditional neighborhoods with small pathways separating each of the living quarters. Most of the Hutongs have been demolished for larger and more modern buildings so it was neat to get a feel for the traditional way of life. We saw people playing mahjong, kids playing in water puddles, and some random stuff like a lady who had two squirrels for a pet. Also really neat was this area near the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower on Guloudong Dajie where it was a mix of old and new. Amongst the old-school Nanluoguxiang Hutong, there are tons of cool and hip restaurants, stores, and bars. It didn't seem geared towards tourists at all but towards Beijing's upcoming youth culture.

After exploring, we headed back to the Wangfujing area to check out the Donghuamen night market. There were lots of random stuff for sale but the main feature was the street food!!! There were normal things like lamb and chicken on a stick, fruit with sugar glazed on top, as well as dumplings and such. However there were lots of interesting choices as well such as fried scorpion, starfish, sea horse, snake, tarantulas, beetles, grasshoppers, sheep penis, and lamb testicles, just to name a few!!

It was interesting to me if any of this weird food was part of Chinese culture
because no one seemed to be eating any of the weird stuff, not even the Chinese. All they wanted to eat was chicken or lamb skewers and fruit. Maybe the weird food was a practical joke on Western tourists wanting to be open and embrace Chinese culture just to find out the vendors made a quick buck off random, gross food. Who knows! I decided to try something anyways and got the fried scorpion. It was alive and moving before they cooked it so I figured the freshness was a plus. It actually wasn't bad at all... Crunchy.. Tastes like random fry batter with some decent seasonings... I had one and then willingly ate the other two pieces. Kristine, the scorpion queen! Will of course, would eat nothing, but gladly documented my delicacy.

After a scorpion snack, we headed to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Since we are in Beijing, we wanted to get Peking duck since it originated here. We got a few other tasty dishes, including fresh sesame balls and the food was pretty good. However, truth be told, the Peking duck at Peking Gourmet in VA still takes the cake for the best duck ever!!









We really enjoyed Beijing and here are some other random facts we wanted to share/remember:
1. Lines don't really exist here. There are just too many people and not enough seats on a train or space on a subway car so you have to muscle you way in.
2. While the are tons of bikes, there are more and more cars these days and they drive like maniacs. Pedestrians do not have the right of way, even during a walking sign on a cross walk. Cars, buses, and motorcycles honk to warn people to get out of the way because the are not going to stop. Seriously, I had a cross walk sign and a public city bus would have hit me if I had not jumped to get out of the way.
3. Beijing is surprisingly modern and very tourist friendly. There has not been many people who we have encountered that speak English but everything is clearly marked in English, the subway is easy to use, and there are literally free bathrooms every 50 meters! We assume much of this was because of the Olympics so I wonder what it was like before.
4. Apparently Beijing is an expensive city if you live and work here, but as a tourist from the US, things are very cheap! A subway ride costs about 30cents and the train ride to the great wall was like $1.
5. When some people think of China, they might think of bootlegged everything. During our short stay in Beijing, we did not come across one bootlegged thing on the streets.
6. The funniest thing we have observed is what we believe is the Chinese way of potty training. We have noticed that many of the small children we have seen that seem to be of potty training age wear these weird pants that are cut open at the crotch. So yes, these kids' private parts are exposed to the air, to the bench that they sit on, etc. When they need to go to the bathroom, they basically squat wherever they are (even if it's on the Great Wall) and go. It is the weirdest thing to see and we think that's how they potty train kids because I have not seen a single kid with a diaper bunched butt. Here's a picture of what I mean...and yes, I do think it's a little weird that Will took a picture. However, in this picture you hardly see all that we saw of this kid in person...











Now we aren't sure if our theories are correct, so don't hold me to it. We could be totally wrong about this but we don't have a better explanation. We'll have to research how much of this is true but our suspicions seemed to be confirmed that this practice is common when we saw this statue... But this leads us to many questions... What if a kid doesn't know yet that they need to go, do they pee/poop all over themselves? In the car? On their parents arm?? Also, although I am not mainland Chinese, I need to confirm with my mother tomorrow that this was not the way I was potty trained!



Now we are back at our hotel packing. We leave early tomorrow morning for Hong Kong with a short layover in Shanghai (5 hrs travel time total). When we arrive, we'll be meeting my mom, sister, and brother-in-law for the rest of our vacay. My dad and brother will meet us the next day.

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