Great wall propoganda

Early start this morning at 6.30 to get to reception showered and ready for 7.10 as I went for the easy option and booked a great wall tour. The first tour I have booked though so I don't feel too guilty. The tour cost 22gbp including lunch which isn't bad as the bus costs 7gbp each way on its own!

Met the driver and guide and a lovely american couple and started off in the minibus, enroute we picked up a british guy called Henry and one more older guy from holland and our little troupe was complete!
We spent the 2 hour drive chatting and napping and arrived at the carpark to see a massive subway, a huge line of random crap vendors, and around 8 big coaches! I began to regret my tour decision and wish I could have done the hike along the wall (which closed 2 days ago!).

The guide suggested we take a cable car up to the wall and then could return to the carpark by sled, giving us the most time at the wall itself which is build right on the ridge of a mountain!
We very nearly walked but in the end accepted her advice, we were given three hours to walk the wall and meet her back at the bottom!

The cablecar up was a ski-lift type so it was open and gave some good pictures, and then we made it to the great wall itself!
First impressions are very impressive, the section we were at had been heavily restored but had a very high number of guard towers (due to the closeness of beijing). The guide explained a few things, a walk to the right was steeper but shorter, the left was longer but more gentle, so we decided on both! and after a bit more explaination we were left by the guide and went off to walk the wall!

Some parts were very very steep with large sheer steps taking you along the wall but the views were amazing!

We got to the end of the open section and there was a sign reminding us that after this it was illegal to walk and had not been restored, so we walked past the sign and carried on! Here it was much more interesting, the wall was badly weathered and in some places missing huge pieces, and was very overgrown but amazing to see, we walked on till we found a collapsed guard tower and took lots and lots of photos!

The wall is not a continous single wall but a giant spiders web of walls with multiple branches and offshoots and we also managed to find another (illegal) offshoot to walk on for a bit offering more spectacular views and amazing photos!

After that we headed back and walked most of the other way past the starting point to see the very much restored sections, but very impressive, especially if faithfully restored!

It was then time to leave so we went to take our 'sled' which turned out to be a toboggan ride down the mountain to the carpark, no safety gear and many shunts later we zoomed to the bottom, that was fun! The guide met us and took us for a very tasty lunch nearby (chinese obviously!) and then we jumped into the bus and drove back to beijing chatting most of the way!

After a shower and a brief sitdown I decided to see some of the famous hu-tong of beijing, but after reaching them I found that it is basically a slum, and similar to walking around the poorer bits of thailand, so I headed back to the hostel to regroup!

Gave Henry (the british guy from earlier) a call and we decided to meet in town for a beer, so we met up and wandered around the main shopping district and found a night market was on selling lots of different types of animal, chicken heart, snake on a stick, and scorpions.
The scorpions were still moving on the skewer and then they were deep fried in front of you and eaten whole, pincers, tail, the lot!

We decided to share a scorpion stick (4 scorpions to a stick) and I ate three while henry managed only the one. The taste a little crunchy but basically just like anything deep fried, not lovely but perfectly edible!

Walking on we found a little resteraurant doing street food so we stopped for a couple of beers and decided to have beijing duck since we were in beijing!
We had a plate each of shredded duck and plenty of pancakes/sauce etc and then were brought the rest of the duck in a soup, organs, skin, etc etc all just chopped into around 6 pieces and thrown in a soup, but it was very tasty!

Henry then mentioned a club in the student district called propoganda he had heard good things about and since it was friday night we called a taxi and told him to take us there.
15km later we arrived! which seems a long way but the beijing municipality is the size of belgium, so maybe not too bad!

After wandering around trying to find this club and desperatly seeking a toilet we found it and after a sneaky beer outside headed in! It was a strange mix of foreign students, chinese girls, and loud music but was a pretty cool place, we had a few more beers and some chatting and dancing and I eventually left at around 3, all in all a good night!