Today I made it to the Great Wall, which was no small feat let me tell you... I was toying with the idea of going on an organised tour, since it seemed so much easier than getting there by myself, despite the fact that they seem to charge a fortune for not very much at all... but in the end I thought no, I can make it there by myself, of course I can.
So this morning I got up and asked the lady in the hostel to write down the keys place names and things I needed to know in Chinese for me, and then I got the subway to where I was told there was a bus, and indeed after a bit of walking around and pointing at Chinese and miming "Great Wall bus", I found it, just me and a million Chinese people crammed on board. It's about an hour outside of Beijing but the bus journey was great, through the city and then into the mountains. I've seen plenty of good walls, but this one is great... ha ha. It really is just immense, a lot of that immensity is the setting it's in of course, the mountains that go on and on and the vastness, it was amazing. I walked a good stretch of it, until I started to get a bit of a wind headache (from the wind that is), mostly along the bit that's been revamped for tourists, but that's what you want isn't it. I did, again, hear some Japanese tourists while I was there... I wanted to hug them, but didn't. After a few hours I managed to locate the return bus, which again wasn't easy, and came back to the city.
I kind of wish I had planned to be in Beijing longer because I haven't really had enough time to get a good sense of the city, just doing the touristy bits, and the longer I'm here the more comfortable I feel... I think if I was here for a week or more I could really like it. At the same time though I'm eager to keep going with my journey, and so also pleased to be moving on tomorrow. In the morning (at the crack of dawn) I'm getting the train to Ulaanbaator, the capital of Mongolia, so I should arrive there on Thursday all being well. Don't expect to hear from me again until some time after then... and hopefully I can get facebook back then. A whole week without facebook... unheard of!
Sorry I haven't put any photos up recently, I haven't had time to upload them onto my computer, but I'll add some soon. See you in Mongolia! x
