Easter Great Wall adventure

It all started last Saturday night at around 7 p.m. when myself, Dave and Ryan, and four girls, Janice, Karyn Marie, Shannon and Jess, climbed into a van we'd rented (for about $75 total... China = cheap) and headed north to the Great Wall. The ride took around 2 hours and we took the time to practice asking and answering ridiculous questions in Chinese, one of my favorites being "Ni xihuan jiqiren ma?" which means, "do you like robots?" I like the Chinese word for robot because it means "machine person" with the same word for person, ren, as American person (Meiguoren) or Chinese person (Zhongguoren). For some reason I think that's funny... I asked a Chinese person one time, "so it's like Chinese person, American person, machine person?" And they said no but couldn't convince me of any good reason why it's not just like that. I guess they're taking robots to their natural conclusion.

Anyway, back to the story: the van arrived at a hotel adjacent to the wall where we settled in for a few short hours of sleep. The place was better than I expected for $10 a bed, but as we guys headed downstairs to see where the girls were staying, we ran into a huge, sacry rat, literally, hopping up stairs. We decided not to tell the girls about said rat, and we realized this was definitely a good idea when a few minutes later they freaked out about a bug. We settled into bed at around midnight with our alarms set for 3:30 a.m. to beat the sunrise. This is an awful short amount of time to sleep ever, but especially when you have the oppurtunity to sleep in a comfortable bed (the most comfortable I've been in in China), all 3 and a half hours of it. Ugh.

We headed out into the darkness and towards the wall, realizing we were a little unprepared for the climb ahead with only our cell phone flashlights and iPod screens. Ooops. We walked about 15 minutes down the road to the spot where we were supposed to be able to get on the wall, though the near side looked impossible. It was a little too dark to see anything very well, but we could see the one thing that stood in the way of us and climbing the wall on the other side: a small reservoir and dam which was quickly dubbed "The Scary Dam" by me and Dave. And it was scary. In truth, the top was maybe 5 feet and the fall maybe 100-200, but trust, me, at 4 a.m. with my cell phone lighting the way, I was freaked.

Here is Scary Dam in more light:


We made it across Scary Dam and closer to the wall, only to find the path we were looking for was not so clear as we'd hoped. It led up the hill to a point in the wall we came to refer to as Scary Window, a small window in a tower about 6 feet off the ground. Ryan climbed in, again with only a cell phone as flashlight and came back to tell us that he couldn't find a way out the other side and onto the wall, as we'd hoped. We decided to head back down and back across Scary Dam to try the wall on the other side, as we really didn't know how to get up it here, and it was nearing 5 a.m., the time we thought the sun would rise. The choice between Scary Window and Scary Dam was a tough one.

We hurried back to the street, at which point Ryan, Karyn Marie and Jess decided they wanted to give the wall one more try. I, meanwhile, led the camp that was more than content to stay away from Scary Dam again, forever. We climbed the hill on the other side of the road to the point where at least we were looking at the wall. (It turned out to be a great view!) We stayed there as the clouds covering the sky lightened (there never really was a sunrise) and we watched our little speck-looking friends from across the valley successfully find a way onto the wall (through that same tower and Scary Window), climb up to the top and then, somehow, back down again. I was happy to be eating donuts at my spot on the hill. At one point it did turn scary on our end, though, as Shannon found some loose rocks and went into a split as she slid a few feet... ouch.

It ended up being a nice morning. We discovered some interesting things later, including this Chinglish sign telling us that the wall we crossed the dam to climb was indeed "closeo."



We also met this Chinese guy with a 7-month old St. Bernard pup named Rex. Rex and his owner were a riot (owner not pictured).



At about 7 we loaded back into the van and returned south to be home in time for church. On the way home we told our driver about some of our adventures, and we told the girls about the rat from the night before. I tried to tell the driver what we'd seen but didn't know the Chinese word for rat. Instead, I said "big, scary mouse." The driver was adament in telling me, however, that it was not a mouse I'd seen. Because, and I quote, "mice are very cute." Hun ka ai was the word he used, the same I'd use to describe a little kid or a puppy. He was right though, the hopping rat was not very cute. And it wasn't a mouse either.

And that's the end. A great time was had by all. And despite the lack of sleep, it was a great Easter morning. Last couple pictures: Here's the wall at first light, and here I am back on Scary Dam, reliving and facing my fears.