Man, the Great Wall is amazing. last night, the girls wanted to be adventurous, so we decided to take the 10km hike on the great wall from Jinshanling to Simatai (just two different areas of the great wall). it was actually a really tough hike. you were basically just climbing enormous numbers of stairs, and then descending enormous amounts of stairs. and... that happened maybe 30 or so times ( i believe we hiked through 32 towers). yeah, and believe me, they weren't easy. there were many times when the climb would be at 70 degree angles - that's really steep! i'm somewhat surprised that the girls got through it all, but i'm actually really proud that they did! for myself, i really enjoy canoeing/portaging/hiking, so i had a really fun time doing it. the scenery was amazingly beautiful. i'll post pics when i get the chance. i just forgot the cable that connects my camera to the computer upstairs in my room, and i don't have enough time to get it before my hour ends at this internet cafe. we were lucky too 'cause it wasn't too hot and there were barely any other tourists on the wall with us, so it seemed like we had the whole wall to ourselves.
so, immediately once we entered the gates, we got swarmed with local mongolian people. this one woman just ran straight towards me and began following me... trying to talk to me in english (asking me where i was from, telling me about her...etc), and trying to help me up the stairs to the great wall. i was warned from another guy at the hostel in Shanghai that this would happen, so i knew she just wanted me to buy stuff from her. she literally followed me for 4 km's on the wall. i couldn't believe it. she looked about 40-something years old. at the end of the 4k's, she asked if i wanted to buy something from her. i bought some post cards just because i felt bad that she had to walk all this way. actually, it was more because i knew that she was only doing this to feed her family... it's crazy that these people have to work so hard just to earn 15-20 RMB (approx $2 USD). i'm guessing that they do the walk with the tourists maybe 3-4 times a day... which is honestly CRAZY. i can't even imagine what it would be like in july ... or what they do when it snows in the winter time.
so yeah, just got an e-mail from Liang, Amy, and Kathy.. and they'll be in Beijing tomorrow night. so it'll be cool to see them again before i leave on friday.
getting excited about teaching and going to kunming too.
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