China Mojo Trip - Part 4

Meet William Lindesay. This guy is the man! He is the founder of Friends of the Great Wall. In 1987, he trekked across the Great Wall, travelling more than 2,470km, in a time when China was still closed off and isolated. I will admit, when I woke up that day I thought we were headed for BaDaLing, a tourist heavy section of the Great Wall. This was much better.It was a very enjoyable hike. The cool mountain air was extremely comfortable. Ridiculously soothing. Just right in my opinion. Perfect conditions for this epic journey. As we walked on and on, the wall became closer and clearer to us. Along the way, William talked more about the history of the Great Wall and some more about his stories.
After reaching the side of the structure, where the wall and fort meet, we climbed up on some piled stones and bricks to finally get onto the Great Wall of China. This section of the wall dates back to the Ming Dynasty.Reaching the Wall felt amazing. I had previously been to BaDaLing twice, but this was in every way much better than what I've experienced. I could only imagine how difficult it was building the fort we were on. Laborers had to build the fort by carrying the bricks all the way from down the mountain.Some parts of the wall were well preserved. Unfortunately, other parts were completely crumbling. We met about 4 people on this hike: a Spanish trekker on his own and a group of 3, from the US.

The most difficult part of the hike: the Oxhorn. This section of the wall forms a large, U shaped curve. Even from afar, we noticed the Oxhorn's presence. It was steep! I tried maintaing my lead along with Max King and William the whole way. It was a difficult section, but definitely worth the view.

By the time we reached the top of the Oxhorn curve, we were far away from the rest of the group. One of my fondest memories of this trip is definitely reaching the top, and surveying the scenery.

After reaching base camp again, William's friends cooked us a lot of hot dumplings. I don't think many of us will disagree that this was the best meal we had, especially when each of us had a bottle of ice cold beer to go down with the dumplings. Awesome, awesome day.

The next day, we went to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. The area was, unsurprisingly, packed. To be honest, the Forbidden City was not as exciting as the Great Wall, neither was it as interesting as Beijing city itself.

However, some of us got the chance to do some purchasing at a store in the Forbidden City, buying different kinds of Chinese painting after some heavy haggling.

I don't remember the area being so heavily populated by the law. Everywhere we went, we saw either Beijing Police, Beijing Security or the Chinese Armed Police. We wanted conduct some more cut-throat business deals, so we headed out from the Tiananmen Square area.

On our way, we stopped at 全聚德, a famous restaurant for its Roasted Peking Duck. Between a few of us, we shared a roasted duck and some other house delicacies.

I purchased a ton of paintings that day. It was really what I was looking forward to in China - price negotiating, and Chinese paintings. With my two desires fulfilled, I declare this trip successful and worthy of the adjective epic.