The Wall

Today we hiked the Great Wall. We woke up at 5:30 (which after Shaolin was really no prob) and were ready to jump in the rickety tin-can hostel tour van by 6:30. Honestly I wasn't super excited on the way there; going to the Great Wall is just something you have to do when you're in China, I felt more or less obligated. I'd seen the pictures, it's a big wall, big deal.
I take it all back. The Wall was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen in my life. It's not just how long it goes for, or how old it is, or how it runs precariously along the ridge of a giant mountain range - it's the size of the wall itself in the desolate countryside. I mean this thing was built like half a millenium ago (I think) and the walls are 100ft high in places and many of the stones are bigger than me. Needless to say it's pretty awe inspiring and we were very excited once there.
Right away Beau and I got picked out by two "Mongolian Farmers" turned tourguides/skeezy swindlers (our actual tour guide accomplished the impressive feat of losing all 10 poeple in the group she was supposed to be guiding). After hiking up and down between about 10 towers they suggested we take a shortcut they knew to the wire bridge. Being the intreped fools we are we quickly agreed and found ourselves walking down the mountain on a goat trail away from the wall. Real smart. This is when normal people's common sense kicks in they go back to the group. Obviously no such luck for the two of us. We followed these two psuedo-farmers deeper into the Chinese countryside until the wall was completely out of sight and we were walking through small villages with stone huts and donkeys. Once we were fully disoriented and competely incapable of finding our way back to the wall or civilization the two supposed guides turned to us and stated very matter-o-factly: "You buy souvenir now or we go home." Ha! And we thought we had gotten too smart to be duped into shelling out cash for stuff we didn't want! Well, obviously having no choice we agreed to buy something off the old billygoats so that they'd lead us back to the wall. Two lucky people back in the States will be getting Great Wall picture books as heartfelt presents from us.
Still, as in the case of the 300 dollar tea party, the experience far outweighed getting tricked out of a few bucks. Still, I can see why the Chinese built that wall to keep those damned Mongolian farmers in their own country. Dirty crooks.
Back in Beijing again we walked around and decided to go swing by the fresh air market we've been avoiding since we got here. Beau was super stoked on the exotic food they had there. Here he is trying to convince a Canadian lady that the scorpion is delicious. Really.
We've got a couple good videos recently - I'm going to try'n upload them but I'm not sure if it's gonna work. If it does, check 'em out! If not check back because I'm bound to get it eventually...