The Great Wall and the peking duck

Early in the morning, we took the subway to the bus station where we boarded the bus that would take us half way to the wall. From there we were to take a taxi, but we were woken up brutally from the nap we caught on the bus and told to get off, only to find out we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere. It was the usual tourist trap. Maayan naively answered "yes" at the bus station in the morning when asked by a woman if we were going to walk on the wall. The woman then spoke to the bus driver, who delivered us to her friends who were waiting eagerly in the "middle of nowhere" in which we were dropped.

Got it?

So, here we were, surrounded by "taxi" drivers willing to take us all the way to the start of the hike, then pick us up at the end of it (some 10 km away). Sweet.
Shay haggled like there is no tomorrow, then got them down to less then half the original price. It was actually not to bad to be driven there and back instead o taking the usually over-crowded minibus (last minibus ride Maayan had chickens under her seat and- no offense, the locals stinck!).

We arrived at the Great Chinese Wall a lot earlier then we expected (it took almost 3 hours to get there as it was) and ater the initial climb from the parking lot, we started walking on the wall itself.

It is beautiul!



The 10km section on which we walked is not the widest part on the wall - no more then 5 meters at the widest point and as little as 2 in places. It is only renovated at the areas closest to the villages - at the beginning and end of the hike - the rest is somewhat crumbly.
This is one of the renovated parts:




The hike is all up and down :) the wall is on top of the ridge and gaurd towers are located at the highest and lowest points in irregular intervals. And mountains and valleys all around!



There are stairs whenever the decline/acsent is steep - stair size varies from mini-step to Extra-Large Giant-step. And I mean Giant. Some stairs were more then knee-high (for Maayan. Shay was later heard to comment "the stairs where not so tall").


All the way, the locals are sitting on the wall, selling anything from T-shirts and souveniers to ice water and cold beer.


Some of the towers are ruined. The local villagers took a lot of the bricks from the Great Wall to builed their homes (which is why only sections of the wall survived while others are completely gone).








At this part, the wall is only an elevated road, really. The batresses are missing






At the river, you pay to cross or walk back the way you came...




Ater a 3 hour hike, our driver was waiting for us at the end of the trail and happily inquired if we had lunch (probably wanted to take us to eat at his uncle's place), then took us back to the bus.

We arrived in Beijing in early afternoon and after a rest went out to try some more of the local cuisin
Peking Duck

The duck is served sliced: skin (suculent, said Shay), lean meat, and fat meat - each served on a separate dish, with all that was left of the duck (bones, fat and other parts) served later ater being deep-fried. You also get flat pancakes, sliced cucumber and scollions and a sauce.

1. Spread sauce on pancake
2. lay on the pancake your choice of duck, cucumber and onion
3. roll
4. eat


Look how much Shay is enjoying himself:

Arrival to Beijing

We landed in Beijing at noon. Left our big bags at the Airport's left luggage (A GREAT INVENTION!) and went to check out how Beijing looks like after the Olympics.
The Airport is quite beautiful. It has three HUGE terminals and gives you the sensation of a really big hall without any supporting columns.

By the time we finally arrived and settled down, it was already dark. We found our way to the famous Tiananmen square and to the entrance of the forbidden city (which we'll probably see in a few days):



Our main goal for this night was to find the famous night market that appeared in Gidi-Gov's show. They sell a lot of weird stuff there. For example - scorpions and sea horses on a stick!
This is food, mind you, so no yuck noises!



No. We skipped those ones and tasted something more conventional :)


This guy tried the sea horses...Gotta love his face!


It is a very long street, and it is a feast to the eyes!




Weird dumplings ?




On the top right corner - MARBE RAGLAYIM (centipede).
Bottom right - GLAMIM, and bottom left - sea stars. All can be deep fried and served on a stick.


OK. Tomorrow we are going to check the great wall. Stay tuned!

More of Xian (The Muslim Area)

If there is something which totally looks wrong - it is a Muslim Chinese.
Nevertheless, we found the Muslim quarter (area?) to be most interesting. It had many small stalls with a wide variety of tasty street food, such as this candy which they prepared on the spot:




The meat looked like it was lying there for too much time...


But... at least they do not cook dogs, cats or pigs there...

All completely Kosher ;)

We only had a day to spend in Xian since the main attraction we came to see was the Warriors, but we were very happy that we also managed to do the Muslim walk around. We also got a glimpse of some nice towers (Pagodas):




Next morning - Will find us on our way to our final destination in China - BEIJING!

Army of Terracota Warriors

We saw the movie The Mummy III in Korea which displayed an amazing animation of the Army of Terracotta Warriors. Obviously, we had to see them in person to make sure Hollywood wasn't bluffing.

Well - They kinda did.

First, the famous horses with the carriage are not life-size, but very small (maybe 1 meter high):

They were displayed in a small museum with several other artifacts that were excavated like bronze arrows and bows, spears, harnesses etc. all belonging to the warriors.

The museum also displayed other items such as a special exhibit for the Olympics - showing the history of sports and leisure as depicted in art. See the statue of a musician:


We did not despair and continued to check out the so called "Pits" (where the warriors were actually discovered and are still being excavated, though the work did not seem to have progressed much since the site was opened).

So apparently, the warriors were placed in these pits - underground halls that were dug for this purpose, then walled, roofed and recovered in dirt after the warriors were put in. What we found striking was the fact that no one knew about them until they were discovered by mistake by a farmer digging a well - he found a terracotta head, they say. This was the mistake of his life, since though his village stood here at the time (1974), nothing is left of the village as the farmers must have been sent packing when the archeological excavation started.

Anyway, the warriors are standing in these pits - 4 in a raw, line after line after line of them - and only a small portion of the site was uncovered the rest is still there.
A lot of them were completely broken (they are hollow) and only some were put together for the exhibition. Most are still either covered, or are lying in pieces in the pits.

It is rather amazing as each of the warriors is completely different - there are really no two alike!!!
Some are skinny, some chubby. Short and tall, uniform according to rank and place and the nicest thing is their expressions. There was one who was standing so tightly he looked like a nervous new recruit - tight and tense, his facial expression showing great stress.

This is an archer who lost his bow:


there was a smaller pit with mostly cavalry men (some of which lost their heads) and their horses:


The officers seem to be amused:



Here you can see the larger pit - as you see, long halls were dug in which they were placed. The walls between the lines of warriors held the roof (which caved in when the wood beams got completely rotten and then the warriors were smashed).

Visitors cannot really go near the warriors - you walk around the pit. It was rather challenging for Shay who was trying to take pictures.

All the warriors were once painted in bright colors - you may be able to notice the yellow scarf of one at the right of this picture.


Outside, at the gift-shop, they had warriors for sale, some of which were trying out for the next Olympics:

From Lijiang to Xian

We left Lijiang on a plane, only to discover that we are not actually flying to Xian, but to Kunming...
You see, sometimes flying in China is like taking a bus. You get on board one and in the middle you discover that there is a connection :)

Arriving to Xian, we went out to dinner, where we found a curious boy who looked at those strange foreigners:

Next morning we had to make a brief stop at the supermarket to buy tooth paste. However, we encountered the Great Potato Rush... unbelievable!

You think this is chaos? Take a look at Xian train station!