China Part II So we felt off on the first night.

Due in part to the disastrous bike adventure the others had on the day I arrived Karl had demanded that days begin earlier so that more could be done. So we woke up at 6:30am the next day (that's right 4 hours of sleep on top of many beers and a trans-pacific flight) to catch our rented man and car (that's something you can do in China) that was to take us out to the Great Wall.

I got put into the front seat for the drive out there. As my first real experience with Chinese driving this was interesting. The speed was not really the thing... it was more the complete lack of regard for lanes and traffic control. This applies to all driving in China. The horn lets people know you are muscling your way in, you intend to pass, you are passing, you would like to pass, or that you would like people to get a move on. You can pass in the right lane, the left lane, the right shoulder, the left shoulder, across the middle so you are heading into traffic. You stop and red lights, but you can make a right hand turn from the left lane, you never stop at an intersection that does not have a traffic light, and while you don't hit pedestrians, you do get as close as you can. As Paul said, "In China there are millions driving, but they all have been driving for only two years. It is a country of 17 year olds."

The Great Wall is called the Long Wall in China. Long Wall is probably a better name for it now. The portion that we walked/climbed was nice in places but quite run down in others. The most striking thing is that the wall is built on top of a mountain ridge and is at the end of a mountain range. So as a barbarian you would have to get all the way thru many mountains and then at the end scale a wall. We walked about 10km or 30 towers. We were on the wall for nearly 6 hours. The other amazing thing is that at every tower there we locals selling water, cola, and beer. Which usually sounded like watercolabeer.

When we finished the wall our man drove us back (2.5hour drive) to Beijing. We figured that it was our duty to have Peking Duck while in Beijing (nee Peking) so after a shower (each) we headed back out. We ended up at the swankiest place we would eat at the whole trip (our bill came to 481RMB) and had too much food to finish, but sadly not as much duck as we would have enjoyed. Naturally, we finished with some beer in a local bar.

The next day we were to catch our flight to Xi'an (say it like she ann) but we had enough time to take in the Forbidden City. Before you can enter the City you must pass thru the main gate with the large portrait of Mao (this is where he proclaimed the PRC in 1949). They are working very hard to get everything repainted and polished up before the Olympic games in '08. And it is a good thing too because a lot of the painted wood is quite faded and many things are quite discolored due to the pollution. (China has 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities.) The FC is very nice and to make it a bit nicer we pulled into a cafe and had a couple of beers and constructed a (what may be considered the FC's first) beer-amid (a beer pyramid).

After we left the Forbidden City we found a little hole in the wall restuarant (a place I would have never have gone into) and had meat filled dough balls and dumplings. After 5 plates of food and 4 beers we walked out of there with 30RMB less in our pocket. That makes $4 for 4 people for lunch.

We caught a cab back to the hotel and then off to the airport. When we got to Xi'an we caught a cab to the hostel. This must have been the worst cab in the city because I believe they were pumping the exhaust directly into the passenger compartment. Naturally we headed out after we got there for some beers.

More to come.  ¶ 16:08