We arrived in BJ on Friday night, and spent a great long weekend with my Auntie Sharron in BJ. Millie caught up with an old friend from QD who now lives in BJ, and we hit the 798 Art area, the PanJiaYuan 'dirt' market and ventured out to a wonderful restaurant on the outskirts Shunyi district called the Orchard. Monday we went for foot massages, had a last lunch with Sharron and then put her in a taxi to the airport.
We then grabbed a taxi to BJ North train station, bought tickets for 6 yuan a piece for a 70 minute train ride to the Great Wall. At the train station we were the only foreigners, and we caused quite a stir as we schlepped our big suitcase thru the turn styles and groups of plastic bag schlepping Chinese passengers. Weathered faced countrysiders gawked openly at us, some even directing their children's heads with hands to look @ us while they loudly proclaimed the Lao Wei.
The train was fast and modern. It snaked its way out of the urban area, and out toward industrial and then ag areas. We passed what accounted to little more than shanty towns, with lurid trash; and piles of coal in sheds and open lots, a reminder of why the air felt so heavy and everything is grey.
Then suddenly it seemed, we could make out the silhouette of the mountains, as the orange sun cut through the palpable haze. A couple of stops later and we beheld the jagged majesty of The Great Wall.
The squalor we had whizzed by was not forgotten, but the reminder that The Middle Kingdom is a cacophony of sights and sounds ... Some beautiful and some less so and some, like the Great Wall, simply remarkable, served as a good reminder.
We checked into a courtyard style hostel where the dinner we ordered was the same price of the smoothie Millie had at lunch! It's cold and unheated in the common courtyard. Our room has two box springs running parallel with a headboard and covered with an uncooperative flat sheet. The thin walls make us thankful that for now it is only us and a pair of British pensioners staying here. Our shower is the less than desirable kind that is mounted above the toilet, and has no curtain (its the kind, if used, where one is sure to mind both the toilet tissue and the electrical outlets.) The tweenager feels squeamish and the mommala is trying to hold fast. We each popped a natural sleep aid, and had our longest, though perhaps not most restful night thus far.
We have scheduled a tour of a 'natural' section of the Great Wall this morning. We will travel about 30 minutes by car from the Ba Da Ling pass of the Great Wall, and spend a couple of hours clambering about an unrestored section if the Great Wall.
It all feels a bit like things are coming full circle ... Ba Da Ling was the first place we visited in BJ in 2006, with Baby Bea in a front pack carrier.
This evening we will head to Qingdao via a tour two car ride to Beijing Capital and a short one hour flight on to our old stomping grounds.
with love,
Jen & Millie
Location:Great Wall Courtyard Hostel
1 comment:
"Our shower is the less than desirable kind that is mounted above the toilet, and has no curtain (its the kind, if used, where one is sure to mind both the toilet tissue and the electrical outlets.)" So now you are experience and can visit me no problem.
Auntie Sharron
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