2 Days in Shanhaiguan featuring the Great Wall

So... the last two days have been a whirlwind...  What started as a normal Wednesday night at the local Irish pub for a quiz ended with us sitting 8 hours away from Beijing 2 days later waiting for a train to go back...  Like all stories worth telling, this one started with alcohol...

The pub quiz went pretty well, we got second place and Michael won a round tiebreaker by beating a guy way bigger than him in an arm wrestling match.

 After that we hit up Sanliton, the local ex-pat district where foreigners actually outnumber Chinese.  The usual occurred... drinks were had, tears were shed, Michael sprayed this English girl with beer, I got hit on by a gay chinese dude...  You know, normal stuff.

So we head home about 3 in the morning and I'm struck with inspiration.... The train station is still open and trains are still running!  It didn't much to convince Michael we should pack a quick bag and head up there as soon as possible.  Here is where things start going wrong.  We are both off Thursday and Friday, and go back to work on Saturday.  This is Thursday morning at 3 am, so why did we each pack 2 pairs of shorts, 3 pairs of shoes and like 4 shirts?  Not to mention boxers, socks and enough toiletries to last a week.  It never occurred to us maybe this was too much.  We would pay for it later.

We catch a cab and end up at the Beijing train station.  We walked through all the Chinese waiting outside and you would have thought we were Ringo and McCartney. (I would be Paul in this scenario)  You could literally feel the stares that were aimed at us.  Regardless, we pass a security  station and the lady manning it yelled something at us.  Typically if someone says something we don't understand we just keep on walking.  So this is what we do and suddenly we are past security and are waiting in line for a train without tickets... This perturbs me.  Michael wants to sneak on but I convince him we should probably do this legit.  (Good thing to because we would later find out our tickets get checked no less than 4 times)  So we go into the ticket office and all the ticket counters and billboards are in Chinese.  We cannot glean a single thing from them other than their times of departure.

What do I do in times like these?  Do I give up?!  Never!  I yell for anyone who speaks English to help us and, thankfully, someone obliges.  Unthankfully, Michael didn't bring his passport so we were unable to buy anything.

So we go home, get his passport, come back, I yell for help again and luckily we are able to purchase tickets.  We are both starving, at this point its like 5 am and the beer munchies have kicked in so we go to a McDonalds in the train station and each order 3 egg mcmuffins, 3 hashbrowns and a coffee each.  What we end up with is 3 egg mcmuffins, 3 hashbrowns and 6 coffees.... WHAT??  We get it figured out, chow down and then go wait for the train where I promptly fall asleep on the floor.

Fast forward a few hours and we are on the train and man, its actually kind of cool.  They have what amounts to bunk beds with 3 beds on each side for us to sleep in.  These tickets were more expensive but we figured they were the way to go since neither of us had slept, if you don't count the 2 hours of floor sleep in a busy subway.  I am asleep before my head hits the pillow, and am promptly reawakened by someone checking my ticket. How rude.  Its all good though, it takes me no time to fall asleep again.

Now, we think this is a 4 hour trip, it takes 8.  In the middle of it the train is boarded by Russians!  My mom would have had a heart attack... She already is like "Why did you go to China?  They hate us!"  Well, now Michael and I are alone on a train full of Russians and Chinese, what do you think about that mom?!  Pictured below is the most Russian man of all time.

We get to our destination and wander into a brand new city, not speaking any of the language and definitely not knowing our way around.  Luckily, some girl who barely speaks English decides she is going to be our tour guide.  She tells us there are only two hotels in Shanhaiguan that are allowed to accept foreign tourists.  Why?  Who knows.  Why is she helping us?  Again, who knows.  How old is she?  Apparently 21, but there is no way over 16.  We bargain for a hotel room with 2 beds, a western toilet and a shower.  Works for me.  I go upstairs and pass out and sleep through the night... Michael watches movies for a couple hours I guess.  Unfortunately we didn't get a picture with our local guide, that was the only thing I regret. (That and we saw asian Snookie and didn't take a picture with her either.)

We wake up at 6am and check out of the hotel.  Our first stop is the train station, where again I have to find help to buy tickets, then we find a cabby outside who will take us to the tourist spots we want to visit all day for less than $30.  Our first stop?  Why the great wall of course.

An un-restored section of the wall

We buy tickets at the great wall that will allow us to enter 3 different attractions.  The first is, of course, the great wall itself.  The second is some forest park with a cave, and the third is 5 Buddha mountain and the 9 Heavens.

We hit up the great wall and wow, you have to be in shape to experience the great wall.  Luckily, I'm in terrible shape!  The wall is steep,and the stairs are 2 times too tall and half as wide as they need to be.  We climb as high as we are allowed to climb, picking up two Chinese guys in there early 20's as companions on the way.  (Did I mention the Chinese in this town treated us like deities?  It's like they had never seen a foreigner before!  More on that later)  So me, Michael and 2 Chinese guys, one who speaks English, one who doesn't, are atop the great wall that we are permitted to climb... But there is this other, higher great wall just steps away, only the sign says no thoroughfare.  So what do we do?  Give up?  NEVER!  We walk on a path next to the great wall, than literally climb onto the older section we aren't permitted to be on and keep going.  So we climb... and climb... and climb...  My thighs are burning and my calfs are begging me to stop but onward we go until we reach the top. The entire time we are carrying our bags which are heavy as hell, great planning on our part. The view was worth it,  I think you will agree.

 We head back down and celebrate with our new friends before bidding farewell and trying to figure out how to get to the next 2 attractions on our ticket.

Turns out we have to get on a bus to get there.  Not a problem, we get in a tiny van with like 12 Chinese and head off.  Not long into the trip, the car erupts with chatter and the girl sitting next to me taps me on the shoulder and says, in heavily accented English, "Where are you going?"  Before I can show her my ticket in reply, we are told we are on the wrong  bus and to get off.  Never fear though, our cab driver was literally right behind the bus.  He had found us somehow and thats what caused the ruckus.  So, where does he take us?  Does he take us to the next attraction?  No!  He takes us back to the first attraction so we can ride the right bus, wtf?  It doesn't matter, eventually we arrive.

Now, my legs are already shot from the Great Wall.  They're jelly.  So what is the first thing we do once we get to the new park?  We climb up about 1000 steep stairs into a cave, where I hit my head, just to come out the other side and climb down 2000 stairs to a road. The cave was a Buddha shrine so that was cool...  Here are a couple pictures.

 There is a Russian tour there and we should have just followed them, but instead we walk a half mile the wrong way, then a half mile back the right way and board a bus.  The bus takes us to...  I don't really know, it takes us somewhere.  We can't speak or read the language and we can't speak Russian to ask all the Russians where we are supposed to go.  We are close to giving up, because we have to be back at the train station at 9 for our trip to Beijing and we don't want waste to much time in one place.  I convince Michael to walk down this one path, just to see what it is and, luckily, it leads us to another bus loading point.

We board this bus and its us and, 14 Russians and their  Chinese tour guide who speaks fluent Russian, but not English.  I have never been more sure that a group of people are talking about me in my life.  Regardless, we drive through a gorgeous canyon with mountains, trees, pagodas, a river... The works really.

We get off the the bus and a Russian guy starts motioning something about a picture.  I think he wants me to take one of his mom and him so I say yes and start walking to take the camera, but noooooo.  The Russian guy (who is white btw) wants a picture with the 2 Americans.  Ok, weird but ok... I can understand some Chinese people wanting to take pictures with us because they don't see a lot of people who look different than them, but Russians?  Give me a cigarette and a glass of vodka and I could pass as Russian.  But ok, we do... And then a Russian girl and her mother ask us to take a picture with her, wtf?

Anyways, the area we are dropped in has 3-4 partially finished Buddhas caved into the mountain walls.  When completed they will be HUGE.  Very cool.

The other thing about this place is there are "heavenly pavilions" or something.  9 in total and each higher than the ones before. We climb... and climb... and climb.. and... still climbing... hold on... almost there... Heavenly Pavilion 1!  There you are...  I get to pavilion 5 before I have to quit.  I am too out of shape and my legs were just beat.  Michael continues to 9, which is very high up there but not incredibly far where I stopped.  I couldn't have gone on though.  My legs were shot.

Michael at the top.

We head down and meet a nice family washing the sweat off in a natural spring.  Drenched in sweat and hotter than hell we both partake.  As we are drying off we are offered a bottle of water from the spring... Thanks but... we'll pass.  Right next to the spring is this pool for Nazi's apparently... (I kid, I know that symbol was a symbol of luck and happiness for different cultures.)

We walk with the family back to the buses and along the way their daughter (maybe about 20) says "Do you guys speak Chinese?" in broken English....  She is obviously expecting a "Yes" or "No" but little does she know that I know about 30 Chinese words.  And one of those words means "Not very well."   So I drop a "Buhao" on her and her mouth drops open like she'd seen a ghost and her entire family bursts out laughing... good times.

We call our cab driver but since we can't really communicate with him we couldn't tell him where we were so we board a bus to go back to the great wall area.  Just before the bus leaves, he comes screaming up in his taxi honking his horn.  He found us again!

We head off for the end of the great wall.  The very end.  The great wall can go no further, because it already goes about 60 feet into the ocean.  We take a bunch of pictures, blah blah blah...

Now, my favorite part of today was the 10 or so times people asked us to take pictures with them just because we are foreign and/or American... Below are all of those pictures because I made each of these people take one with my camera too.  The best part is the final one.  We are eating in a restaurant before boarding our train and the waitress comes and says, "Um... Excuse me.  I have one request.  Maybe you finish eating, could you take a picture with us?"  And I said, "Sure, but its gotta be everyone!"  And it was!  The cooks and everything!

I have posted just a small fragment of the pictures we took here, for the rest check out my Facebook.... there are at least 12 million there.

Russian

Russians

A Buddhist Monk

Our cab driver