Day 17 - The Great Wall of China

It took about 2 hours to get to the Mu Tian Yu end of the great wall from downtown Beijing. On the way there, we passed by a bunch of villages that were drying corn out on the streets. I was actually quite disgusted until I realized it was being dried for chicken feed and not human consumption.

I've been told that compared to most days in Beijing, it's exceptionally clear. Here the air is clear and the sky is blue. I ended up taking a cable car up to turret 14 and walked to the end at turret 20. The wall is absolutely amazing. I had a moment where I had to stop and a just stare at it for a moment and realized I was actually on the Great Wall of China :). As I approached turret 20, the stairs were like a ladder. They were so steep I was hugging the wall on the way up. It was totally worth it at the top. You could see the wall stretch on forever. It took about 45 min to climb to the west end of the Great Wall. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen and will remember it forever.

Later that night I went to see a Kung Fu Performance at the Red Theatre in downtown Beijing. The show was kind of weird but good. It was more of a play than a Kung Fu demo about monk who learns Kung Fu. They did show many styles such as the monkey, mantis and duck as well as others. The acrobatics were amazing. Unfortunately they did not use real weapons, most likely because they would be too dangerous. But really, what's fun without some kind of danger!

Next stop, night market! The night market at Wang Fu Jing is amazing! I've never seen so much food cooked on one street in my entire life! I ended up having noodles from a stand and then picked up a bunch of other stuff along the way. It appears that most street food in Beijing is on a stick. There were things like live scorpions, silkworms, sheep penis, centipedes, fruit and starfish on sticks. Only things I ate on sticks were the haw berries covered in sugar, starfish and crab. FYI, starfish is gross. Its kinda like sea urchin without the bitterness.

Then I went for a walk through Tianamen square and all the buildings were lit up. There's a huge display of the olympic characters as well.

So being in Beijing is like constantly being in Chinatown. EVERYONE is pushing and spitting in the streets. No washrooms have toilet paper and you would be lucky to find a toilet you didn't need to squat over. In addition to this, crossing traffic is like gambling with your life.