Beijing: Enter the Dragon

Mike and I met up in the Vancouver International airport a couple of weeks ago to start our epic journey and fly out to Beijing. After starting the trip in the traditional way, by sleeping in the airport (one of the nicest I've slept in so far actually) we arrived in Beijing on the afternoon of Thurday the 14th. The fist day we pretty much just found our hostel and after an inagural dinner completely passed out, exhausted by the journey.

We visited many of Beijing's standard sights such as the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace, as well as did some wandering around in the hutong, Beijing's historic maze of narrow alleyways and traditional houses. On the second day we met up with Jack, the boyfriend of a Chinese exchange worker from where I work in Tahoe. He was incredibly friendly and took us around the city with another friend of his who taught me a little bit of Chinese, which has been incredibly useful during our travels.

We also made an excellent trip out to the Great Wall, and after an early morning busride and good long drive into the mountains we arrived. After climbing up the steep mountainside to reach the wall and paying some hawkers to essentially leave us alone, we had an amazing time. We hiked 10km along the incredible structure with some amazing views and over some more treacherous, broken-down sections of the wall. We will add photos when we get the chance.

Also, we ate some interesting things at the night market in the city, among them something called "bee cocoon" and some crunchy crickets.

-Russ and Mike