The Great Fall

Before coming to China, I didn't realize that there was a possibility that I wouldn't get to see the Great Wall. Giving that I was staying in Nanjing, which is like going from New York City to North Carolina, the odds for making it to The Great Wall seemed slim. However, where there is a will there is a way. God bless China for being one of the last countries in the world where the U.S. dollar goes far. Getting around is pretty damn inexpensive. A 10 hour train ride is 150RMB or $21(as of March/April 2008) assuming you are riding in the hard seats, which I don't recommend. If you're taking a two to three hour trip, then fine get the cheap seats. However, from Nanjing to Beijing it's approximately 10 hours. Not cool!!! Mind you, that's all that the train booth attendant said they had available for the day that we were traveling (questionable, but oh well). So being that it was inexpensive, I jumped at those seats.

I was prepared for this trip. I packed snacks for the ride, got extra antibacterial wipes, and I bought extra batteries for my camera. I laid my wardrobe ahead of time. I finished drinking liquids so wouldn't have to use the nasty train toilets. I helped my boyfriend get his stuff together, because he would be coming directly from work. I was ready.

We got to the train station an hour early for extra time to find the train. As soon as we sat down some teens began laughing at us. Because we're African American, they laugh. I can't take offense, because honestly I've laughed at them on millions of occasions, but not like that. Oh well! So we got to our seats, and oh my god! I had know idea that the hard seats were so cramped and you couldn't recline. Even worse, we were sitting directly across from giggly teens or early twenty-somethings. There was no leg room, and my thirty-something knee doesn't like to stay bent for long lengths of time. It was now about 11 p.m. and Arien who is the total opposite of a night owl was already starting to dose, and since I'm a borderline insomniac I was getting restless (get it restless, insomniac) and irritable. The whole ride was just uncomfortable. All I could think about was not getting to the Great Wall or Tiananmen Square, but the expensive seats that we purchased on the way back. So finally the night was over, and I survived with drowning myself in the pee hole of a toilet that's so popular in China. Speaking of that I held my urine as long as possible before finally having to get up and use the nasty train pee hole. Uh, yuck yuck yucky. I avoid their public facilities as much as possible but that's another quick blog.

So as soon as the train stops, we look out the window and there's our tour guide waiting for us with a sign say Ms. Michelle (my middle name). We proceed to the long walk to the car. By the way the Beijing train station is less desirable than the Shanghai and the Nanjing stations. Arien and I go into the closest hotel's rest room to freshen up a bit while the tour guide waits. However, this stop put a weird pace to the tour. We then proceeded to Tiananmen Square where all of the big shit goes down in China. The home of the commies. It was cold and I must say everything the guide (who calls herself Selena) said went in one ear and right out the other. o.k. I don't think a lot of it went into either ear. It's a little shallow but none of that meant anything to me. That doesn't mean that I didn't take a hundred pictures there, because I did, but it just didn't move me. That's why I don't traditionally take tours when I travel, because non of the information never resonates with me. Also I like the freedom of coming and going when I please. However, in this case taking a tour seemed like the best idea, since I had read how people get taken for rides figuratively and literally in Beijing. Now I have read where you can hire a taxi driver for the day who can drive you wherever you want to go, but I felt that a tour guide would help expedite any of the hassles. Like standing in long lines buying tickets, and moving us along efficiently, since we were under such tight time restraints. Apparently, Arien saw it differently. He was offended that the tour guide was moving so fast and hurrying us along. Honestly, I didn't mind because, it was cold and there was nothing to see at the square besides a few monoliths and statues. We then proceeded to the Forbidden City, which was right across the street from the "square." Now that was a sight to see...for about the first 15 minutes. Then I was like, "enough already." Once you've seen one Asian styled building, you've seen them all. This place just kept going and going. I will not make my bad Energizer bunny joke. It was massive. Again I didn't retain much from that experience, except for a bunch of photos of the same building, well that's what it's going to look like when show people. Freezing in Beijing wasn't that much fun, but the fact that I was there in the place where I lot of shit went down in history, I was pleased. Arien and I bought gloves from a guy on the street and the "janky" Selena who speaks Chinese, neglected to help us bargain with guy. She waited until after to tell us that we paid to much. Uhhh you biatch!!! Oh I forgot we rushed the garden whose name escapes me right now. Since we started the tour an hour later than the website listed and we took a long freshen up break, we were off schedule.

Finally we headed to the reason we trekked all the way to Beijing from Nanjing on those uncomfortable "hard seats." Off to the Great Wall were. (screeching stop sound)But wait we must stop at the Jade shop and have lunch there too. Here we go again. Why is it every tour has a place where they take you, where they obviously get kickbacks? In Shanghai, it was the pearl factory. Let me just say, I don't dig pearls or jade. However, if you read the blog about bargaining, the jade store's lesson in jade came in handy. The drive from the city center (Selena pronounced city "citay") was about 40 minutes, and all along the way, Arien kept asking if we could stop and buy jackets, because it was colder than weather.com said it would be, and at the Great Wall it would be about 20 degrees colder. However, the driver never quite stopped. So as we approached the mountains, it was apparent that the weather conditions were not great. I kept thinking that my only saving grace for staying warm were my Uggs. The joke would soon be on me. The sight was awesome. It was foggy just like I expected. From what we saw of the mountains, it really amazes me that they needed a wall to keep invaders out. The mountains would've been enough for me. I can't believe that people climbed those mountains to attack and then climbed over the wall. That's insane. So we finally arrive and snow is falling from trees, and there's bunches of ice on the path. I'm thinking, I live in chicago (chi cagggggo) I can handle this. We first stop at a stand because we were still freezing, and bought the only cheesy sweatshirts that they had. It said, 'I climbed the Great Wall." We begin climbing, and I'm not only still freezing, I also not photo ready. My hair was busted, and I now had on a blind as a bat red sweatshirt over my great pumpkin orange sweat suit, while wearing Uggs. I forgot the mention the bears that were on display before we entered. They looked like Jim Belushi in "Trading Places" when he was dressed up like a bear. They did not seem real. One was acting rowdy like a school mascot, like he was going to attack. Anyway back to the climb. At every few feet we climbed we stopped to take a cheesy picture. My worry was that the visibility was so bad that no one would believe that I was actually climbing the Great Wall. My worry should have been the people in the background of our photos sliding down. So as we climbed, I noticed something missing in the mist of all of the snow. SALT! I didn't let that bother me. I kept climbing. On a dry Autumn day under pleasant circumstances the climb would've been very strenuous, but this day was times 10 no 50. I felt my feet slip a few times, but thought to myself, 'you can do this.' Then after awhile it kept getting steeper, and Arien's who was ahead of me was slipping a little, which started to worry me. Then it happened, I fell on my left hip. Boom. Arien then said take my hand. My thinking was if I took his hand and he fell we would both go tumbling down horribly, or if I fell again so would he. So I manned up and kept going, until it happened again on an even steeper part. I was getting very defeated and fearful at this point. We hadn't even made it half way across yet and people were throwing snowballs everywhere. I was sweating and holding back tears of embarrassment, because I knew that I would end up on somebody's website falling. "Neega Fallen at Great Wall.com" would appear on youtube.com. I was kind of shook up at this point. A whole crew of Asians were surrounding me like Ms. Sofia's brothers crowded Ms. Millie in "The Color Purple" helping Arien pick me up. Arien being the nice guy, gentleman told Selena that we could go now. I felt like a buster. First, I didn't zip line in Costa Rica, now this happened. So we started down the wall cautiously. I know Selena was happy, because she has to walk the Great Wall all the time. About half way down it happened again, and I started yelling obscenities, and slowly got back up. I wanted it to be over. Then some Asian had the bright idea to come tell me to just start sliding. Well actually he motioned it, and like a dummie who wanted this adventure to be over, I did it. In the midst of my hysteria, I had clarity that that was the dumbest move yet. Now my ass was wet not only from snow, but from frozen Chinese spit. I felt like such a dick head. I broke out balling. Arien being the nice guy, was trying to calm me down. It's o.k Dena. It's o.k. So of course once we finally made off of the wall, I put a twist to my experience. Well at least I have a story to tell. Most people that have been, can just say, "Hey, guess what? I climbed the Great Wall." I can say I fell at the Great Wall. Even more so, I can say I slid down the Great Wall.

Before we left, I bought my stereotypical Asian samurai hat. Now I was sitting in the back seat freezing my ass off literally. Now since the wall was cut short, thanks to yours truly, we were ahead of schedule. So Selena, started pulling things out of her ass to fill the time up. All I wanted to do was get some new underwear, since I brought an extra pair of jeans. The killing part was my gut instinct (which is spirit) told me to bring an extra pair, and I ignored the voice. Bad host (in the voice of Arsenio). Arien had to see the stadium where the Olympics are going to be held, so we drove by there. What's with men and stadiums? Anyway, we took a few flicks, although it was foggy and I was still freezing. That's when the jokes started. I told Arien he could make jokes. So he started. I was sore and ready to see what our expensive seats were like, but I was not looking forward to a 10 hour train ride. After walking around to shops by the train station, we made our way over there. Boring I know, I really don't know why I'm sharing every detail, so I'll fast forward to the train. We get on our train carriage, and bingo we hit the jackpot. Not only did we have good seats we had a sleeper that we shared with 2 other people. Then I found out that we had the upper bunk, and I had a flashback of the wall. "I don't wanna climb any more." I thought, then some Asian kids asked us if we would trade with them so they could be with their friends. "Thanks Buddha." As we were leaving I thought I heard the kids say, "Thanks Neega!" then I kept hearing Neega this Neega that. All I could think was the white man has done a job on this world, but I didn't dwell on it, because we were in "train heaven" or shall I say Nirvana. We played 3 games of Spades and the next thing I saw was the train worker knocking on the door saying, "Waka Up, Nanijing stop at 5:14."