A Tale of Two Cities (Part VII) - Scorpion Women

So, we still had time to do some stuff after arriving back from the Wall. It was most of our last days though. They decided they wanted to go to some Olympic Stadium. It sounds pretty boring, and I really wanted to eat scorpions like my friend had told me to do before I had left, but since it was going to be our last time together, I decided I'd tag along and then go afterward or maybe find them on the way. I asked where they could be found before I left and when they were supposed to close. It seemed like I'd have enough time, but I was still worried. I had delayed trying to find and eat them for various reasons. Mostly because I didn't actually want to eat them, but also because I felt like the next day my stomach would be more accepting of them or something. Since it was my last day in Beijing, I felt I had to find them.

You can't see anything in the video, but when we were leaving, I managed to get some terrible video of the random dancers outside the train station.

Also, this ad for some kind of sand doctor / Jesus / something.

One of the train stations had a pretty alright mural thing going on.

Also, the trains had an electric thingy I wish that more of the CTA trains had.

It was already dark before we had even left, but there was tons of lighting. There were a lot of stands, so that got my hopes up for a bit, but I still couldn't find any scorpions.

I saw the stadium in the distance and I was starting to get more and more concerned with if I'd accomplish my goal of eating scorpions. When I saw a bag check and thought I might need some kind of ticket or that at least we'd be wasting a lot of time, I decided I'd rather try to accomplish my goal so I told one of them and parted from the group.

They had a bunch of people flying those long kites.

 I was also very hungry so I was kind of stressed out and really wanted to eat. So even though I was worried about time, I tried to find food, which took a while.

I ended up all the way at the other end of the Olympic Park area and then some, but then had to walk all the way back to try to find a train station. Since I had walked all the way back, I decided to actually go through the gate and check just in case there were actually scorpions there. I had asked (read: showed a potential Chinese character for scorpion to) someone about them, and they had pointed in that general direction, but I couldn't find any near the entrance and gave up and went to the first place I was told I could find them.

Bus hammers on the train! This one is hiding though.

I arrived where the hostel person told me to go at the time he said they'd be closing. It seemed like the rich people part of town. It was also right next to Tian'anmen Square, so I was almost back to there again.

Sure enough, I couldn't find scorpions there either. I searched for a short time before giving up and hoping I could find them in Shanghai or in the morning before I left.

As I turned to leave, someone called out to me.

Two girls tried to talk to me in English. I was initially suspicious, but I kind of wanted to actually make new Chinese friends and so far all the people that tried talking to me were just interested in meeting a foreigner like many Japanese, and when they asked me to help them practice English, I felt that as an English teacher, it'd be a nice thing to do. I asked if they knew about scorpions in the area and they said there was a place but it was closed already. When I asked if I could get scorpions in Shanghai, they said yes, so I decided I'd just join them for a little while.

They wanted to go to a bar or something, but I told them I didn't drink. I talked them into getting tea instead. We went to some nearby teahouse and got a small room to ourselves.

I decided to just order some oolong tea. 

The one girl didn't say much, but the other was kind of flirty in a strange way. She didn't seem to like whenever I mentioned Japan or Japanese though. She'd ask a lot of questions about the girlfriend I had already told her I didn't have. Including asking if I had pictures of her in my wallet.

For some reason, they ordered three glasses of wine despite the whole reason of being there was because I didn't drink. They also each took a turn leaving for short periods. I presumed to go to the bathroom. They suggested we go to karaoke or dancing, and started to get more antsy about going as time went on. I kind of just wanted to go back, but I figured I should do stuff so I agreed.

Then the bill came.

The girl had been talking as if it was some kind of strange date for so long, and I figured I still had a ton of money to spend, so I just tried to pay the whole bill because of male privilege and all that (not remembering I was supposed to be helping them).

It sounded like a lot, but I handed over some Mao bucks.

They looked concerned that I hadn't given enough, and then I noticed there was an extra zero. The bill was something like $300.

Apparently oolong tea can be absurdly expensive. They said that there is a phrase that jade and oolong tea are expensive and no one knows why. They said it was imported from Taiwan, but I could have flown to Taiwan myself for less.

I was so baffled at how the bill became so large that I just started handing over Mao bucks until the problem went away. Except even all of my money wasn't enough.

They seemed deeply concerned now. They kept asking me if that was all my money and if I had cards or something. I had taken all my cards out of my wallet to prevent theft, which was definitely for the best. When she realized I really couldn't afford it, she finally took all my money and went with the waitress to pay the rest. Or at least I assume she did. When I said this was literally all of my money for an entire other week, she eventually gave me back a few dollars. Enough that I could spend about $3 per day. When I told her that wasn't enough, she tried to convince me it was and how it could be accomplished.

Then we left the place, and I was still in a bit of a daze. They were suddenly less keen on karaoke or dancing. Instead they just lead me to the bus station and kind of explained how to get back. One walked away and the other got on a different bus.

When I finally was on the bus, riding back (not sure where to get off), I realized what happened. I was so concerned about pickpockets, I never thought of this kind of theft.

When I got back, I found the Swede sitting at the table. I told him what had happened to me, but apparently they had had a incident of their own. They had all just gotten back. All but one. Apparently when they got back, they stopped at the nearby convenience store. Except one of the Irish girls wanted to use the bathroom. So she tried to go on ahead to the hostel. Except she never got there.

Her friend was in a panic. We set out and tried to find her.

We had no way to reach her and no way of knowing where she was.

Her friend feared the worst.

We did eventually find her. Some Chinese man had used Google translate on his phone to help her. She had also panicked and was crying. The two of them had a crying fit together, leaving the Chinese people somewhat rather confused.

When we got back, she was feeling rather stupid. The Swede told me to tell everyone my story to make her feel better. 

Apparently it did help, but then some of them started assuming things because women were involved, which was pretty annoying.

In the morning, I ate some of muesli the hostel offered as I usually did and tried to set out.

Except I couldn't find my ticket.

I had not been sure where I had put it for a while, but now I actually needed it.

I searched all my things over and over. I even had my friends help look through my things. I had something hidden in one of my bags that I wanted to avoid them seeing, but they reached that pocket while I was checking my locker, and I'm pretty confident one of them saw, so that was pretty bad (though no one said anything). 

In the end I couldn't find it. Fortunately, I had taken a photo of it (like I do everything). They said I could bring that and maybe they'd print me a new one. Except I wouldn't have had enough time since I wasted so much time looking for it. And then I realized that the ticket wasn't for 9 anyway, but 8, so I didn't even have time to make the train.

In the end, because I had no money, I had to go to a bank and withdraw from my home bank, and then I had to buy a new ticket. I waited in line and got one for the same day, but I had to sit around for a while. I couldn't get wifi and I was pretty bored.

I eventually got on the train. I had had a incredibly sucky ending to my Beijing trip, but at least that leg was over. I was on my way to where my friends were.

A Tale of Two Cities (Part VI) - Goddamn Mongolians!

Well, actually the night of the infinite garden wasn't over yet. After I arrived and everyone got together, we set out to accomplish another of our goals - Peking duck in Peking. So we set out to the nearby restaurant we were recommended.

The duck came in a duck.

Maybe there was a more proper technique, but we basically ended up making duck burritos.

Photographic evidence I bought my ticket! This became unfortunately important later.

The next day, we were headed to the other hostel so we could visit the Great Wall. We picked a less touristy, less renovated section. Both of those statements were quite understatements.

Apparently Chinese McDonald's sells vomit.

I could never read nor understand Chinese food, so I frequented the nearby Korean restaurant instead.

We arrived at the bus station which would be the beginning of our long and confusing journey. I ran into a Japanese person and talked him for a bit. He rode the bus with us for a while, but then realized he missed his stop or was on the wrong bus or something.

Technically, I was the best at reading Chinese, and somehow I was somewhat in charge of directions. A foolish mistake. We rode the bus for a while until someone hopped on the bus, spotted us, and tried to tell us something that seemed like he was saying this was our stop.

It wasn't.

However, I didn't know this and while I tried telling him I didn't think he was right, but since the driver wasn't saying anything and just let him on to talk at us, and he was so insistent, I eventually assumed he knew more than we did or maybe worked for the hostel or something. I told everyone that I thought we were supposed to get off there, and we all alighted.

Nope, he was just a taxi driver. And by "taxi driver", I mean he had a van. And not just him, but a fleet of other people with cars or vans, just camping by the bus station, trying to get people into their vehicles.

I continued to talk to him and the other "taxi drivers" to figure out where we were and how to get where we needed to go. I couldn't figure out if riding their taxi was the best way, but my friends were pretty adamant about not getting in and I eventually came to my senses and agreed, but yet couldn't bring myself to just ignore them or anything, so I kept talking to them. Eventually another of our bus came and we got on.

When we did reach our transfer station, we were immediately assailed by yet more "taxi"men. They would follow us for long periods of time, too. Or even hang out at the bus station with us. A lot of cars would drive past and slow down or even stop at the bus stop trying to get us to get in their cars. Most already had people in them. And yet they just sat there, waiting until a bus drove them off. Sometimes they'd get out or sometimes they'd just be people that walked over. They were just incredibly creepy, annoying, and persistent. We just stood there, hiding from the rain under the tiny roof until our bus came.

It was a long and boring bus ride and we couldn't move or sit for almost all of it. I had nothing better to do than to try (with great difficulty) to get a picture of the slightly amusing lederhosen-clad boy who got injured enough by the door to start bleeding.

I wasn't particularly successful.

I also took random pictures of the rest of the bus. Like this convenient card swipper. I never figured out what all the numbers were supposed to mean.

Bus hammers!

Never give up.

Eventually, we did get to sit.

And even buckle up!

Luckily, we were able to find where we needed to get dropped off. It was a very tiny, quiet town.

It had some decoration and stuff. We had to figure out how to get to the hostel, which is always a somewhat difficult task.

We could see the wall on the horizon.

Also corn.

The hostel was full of cats. 

We were told we could touch the Wall from the hostel, but really we could just sit it on the next hill.

So many cats.

We set out to try to reach the Wall or something before it got dark. Like a scouting mission. We'd climb the Wall in the morning.

I don't know why, but I really liked the grass and the bricks and the whatever.

The area was quite rural with clearly very old buildings.

And animals. Angry animals.

Along the way, we found some really cute puppies.

They ended up following us for a while.

I eventually found a map of the area.

Apparently the village was supposed to be some kind of Communism experiment. I wonder how well it performed.

We ended up back at the bus stop from an alternate route.

We came across a wall, but probably not the the Wall.

And some kind of temple that was closed.

We walked on a little bit after that trying to find the Wall still.

DYI barbed wire.

Eventually the girls turned back for dinner, but the Swede and I went on ahead more since we thought it wasn't much farther.

The Chinese equivalent to where I lived.

We were coming up on the road the bus took us on again just on the other side of the tunnel.

Although one of the puppies turned back, one continued to follow from a distance. Whenever we passed people and it tried to go near them, they hissed at it for some reason. I didn't realize at the time, but the dogs were strays. My friend told me to stop petting it because it might follow us into the street and get hit by a car.

Sure enough, it did follow us across the road. Fortunately it didn't get hit.

It was interesting to see the hammer and sickle being casually used.

I had stopped at some point in the town when I saw some shirtless man just sitting at a fork in the road to try to ask him where the Wall was. I was looking for a particularly old section. I remembered most of the characters from the name and tried to write it. He eventually figured out what I was trying to write. Unfortunately, I figured out the town also had that name so that was probably where he led us with his directions.

More parks with free workout gear.

Well, it wasn't the Wall, but we found this bathroom. It's basically the same thing.

We saw the Wall in the distance. We weren't convinced it was the part we were looking for, but it was too far anyway. We decided to head back for dinner after exploring the immediate area.

More geese.

So we headed back, still puppy in tow.

More free workout gear.

Our puppy found a corgi.

We eventually got back, and I had to close the door to prevent the puppy from entering the hostel by closing the gate.

We had dinner with everyone and watched Ghost. One of the girls was very unhappy with our commentary as we watched the movie.

The hostel had some kind of water heater that required both turning the fuse on and then turning on. Like in the Karate Kid movie we tried watching at the hostel, but was too scratched to find out if Evil Kung-Fu won the day. I'm not sure why Chinese showers are like that, but it's still better than the Japanese not-working version.

At some point I ended up walking into the kitchen and found this convenient and simple what-goes-with-what chart.

With some rather strange combinations.

The next day we decided our paths. The girls wanted to take a shorter, easier path, but the Swede and I wanted to go on the difficult route. So we ended up splitting into two groups. 

And so after being told our path with a rather crude map, we set out. Fortunately, the beginning was exactly where we were the evening before.

More dogs.

We managed to find an entrance to the path. It kind of matched the description, especially the part about stairs, but I think we were supposed to pay at some point, but we never found anything or anyone asking for money.

To protect himself from the sun, my friend brought an umbrella from the hostel.

The path was pretty not-a-pathy.

We found some kind of structure before we reached the Wall.

It was closed, and I wasn't sure if it was even ever used.

I never even figured out what it was for. It might have been where we were supposed to pay. Maybe.

Afterward, we could see the Wall up ahead.

The path was covered in a lot of small poop pellets. I just assumed there were like a billion rabbits somewhere. I tried avoiding stepping on them at first, but it became pretty impossible.

It wasn't much long after we finally reached the Wall.

It's hard for me to pick which photos I like best, so I'll keep a lot of the duplicates.

I finally decided to try out my panorama mode on my phone.

Even from the beginning of the Wall, you could easily see all the town. It was strange to think that this was once the border of China. Even though we had reached the start of the "path", the wall went in both directions. Except one of the directions was basically a cliff. I spend a lot of the hike trying to figure out how they managed to build these walls up on these cliffs. 

Mysterious rock.

There was a path, but walking on the Wall was a lot more fun (and a lot more dangerous).

We were told that the path would be sparsely populated, but we were basically the only ones on the path the whole time until a group of three showed up. It appeared to be a couple and a guide. We were ahead of them and were faster than them so it was still almost like we were the only ones there.

The hills were pretty cool.

Ming Dynasty power lines.

Parts of the "path" were more forest than path.

Eventually (though rather quickly), the couple and their guide seemed to have turned back leaving us to be really the only ones on the path.

We found what I presume to be a strange shrine to some water god.

There was supposed to be a shortcut back, and we decided the path-looking thing on the other hill was supposed to meet up with our path and take us back.

The path just went up and up through several guardhouses.

We found another random shrine-like place.

I often spent too much time taking pictures and had to run to catch up with my friend.

Though apparently (at least for this photo), I got ahead of him.

There was the occasional climbing involved. (Probably mostly because we mostly walked on the Wall instead of on the path.)

Some of the buildings seemed to have at least some attempt to fix or at least delay their destruction.

I kept thinking we were almost at the end of the section, when I would get high enough to see it stretch on. It was a pretty tiring climb.

One of the guard towers still had roof access. The stairs were pretty super dangerous, but still functional.

I'm still not sure what the poles were for. I had the feeling they weren't original though.

They finally had some kind of protection to keep us from falling. There were a few times earlier on the path that I almost fell. Which would have been really really bad.

I thought I had already ran into the parts of the path I was warned about not being well-trimmed until I ran into this. The path was basically invisible.

We were finally in range of the last tower and could tell that it was actually the last tower.

We came across a part of the path even worse than the last - this part wasn't just invisible, but obstructed my view and even had thorn plants guarding all of it.

We finally reached a plateau and were in range of the last tower.

The last tower was in pretty rough shape.

Fortunately, we were able to confirm that it was, in fact, the last tower we could (safely) reach.

We managed to find a way up on top and took some more photos.

Having reached the end, we turned back. By this point, we were very hot and tired. I had long ago drank the last of my water. And my foot had begun to hurt. Going down was probably the least fun part.

At some point on the climb down I accidentally knocked over a somewhat large stone in the direction of my friend. Fortunately, it missed him...

Aside from potentially severely injuring my friend, nothing particularly eventful happened on the way down until the first tower.

Apparently all the poo pellets had been sheep. A whole ton of them were gathered in the first tower.

My friend tried to get close and I tried to record his imminent demise.

Unfortunately, no stampede happened and then we finished walking back.

My feet were quite unhappy with me by the time we got back, but we made it eventually. 

We had to head back same day, so having met up with the girls, we set out to the bus stop.

We had to wait in that all-too-familiar place again.

This time we had seats.

Someone stole a bus hammer! I wish it were me...

Then the second bus.

Complete with another bus hammer!

Fancy electronic street signs!

I felt very satisfied with our Wall trip. I might go back and visit the renovated section, but I think I will pick a much cooler month or pack more water.

Or maybe a Segway.