Grinden till Kina

Hi there!

What a day!

As the title says, today we visited the great wall, the Badaling section. It lies in an area with much elevation due to the mountains so there were almost no flat areas. That means a lot of stairs… We have been walking for most of the day now and I think we’re all really tired right now. It has also been very hot today, about 40 degrees C and as usual very humid. We were all soaked with sweat before we even began the climb. I didn’t went all the way to the top but high enough. It would have been a great view if not for the smog which did it quite hard to see far. But it gave the mountains a mysterious feeling, just like the Misty mountains in Middle-earth. And with the help of my photo equipment, I got some blue sky

On the way up we found a tourist shop and I bought myself a typical Chinese straw hat so now I look like a real Chinese (at least on the head…)

After the visit to the wall we went for lunch in an old factory that had been rebuilt into a restaurant and shop. We had the kind of food that I eat in Chinese restaurants at home, it was more made for western tourists.

Then we took a short trip to the olympic area and saw the ”bird nest”, the olympic area from 2008.

Next thing on the list were a trip to the hutongs, the old residential area of Beijing. It was a nice place to discover another side of China and we did it with rickshaws, small bikes that can take you around really fast.

There is also a bar street that we apparantly had visited one of our first nights here.

Our last stop before dinner was the tienmen square which is more or less like a big parking lot. But it’s one of the places one should visit when in Beijing so now we have

The dinner today was probably the best we’ve eaten since we got here, mostly because we were really hungry and thirsty. It was traditional Chinese food served on a spinning table so everyone around the table easily can take some. Then we went back to the campus.

Tomorrow is our second free day and the plan is the take some well-earned sleep, do some homework and then explore Beijing.

What else is there to say?

I’m really beginning to understand that I actually live here and that it’s not a simple vacation. I really enjoy every about my new life here (except our non-working toilet maybe…) and I am really excited about the next weeks and months!

Stay tuned for more rapports from Riceland!