Beijing Day 3

On Wednesday, I spent the entire day at my conference. Tim took advantage of my engagement and spent the brunt of the day hiking a segment of the Great Wall. He hired a car for the day (for the equivalent of around $115) to drive him to the Great Wall at Jinshanling (about 110km from Beijing). He started hiking here and hiked about 10km along the wall to Simatai, where the driver picked him back up. Even though the hike was a decently short distance, it took several hours since that area of the wall is not in the greatest condition. However, it is also not packed with tourists--just a handful of others on the same hike. Oh, and Mongolian farmers trying to sell the tourists stuff. Tim said the sales pitch was almost always the same, with the same English phrases. After saying no to several, a woman asked Tim if he wanted a postcard. He said "no" again. She said "Maybe later?" He said "OK, fine. Sure. Later." So she followed him. He didn't realize that she planned to follow him until "later" arrived. She was apparently fairly companionable... her English was good enough to give him some tidbits about different sections of the wall, etc. Tim was apparently moving at a pretty good clip, though, and it was tiring her out to keep up with him. At one point, she says: "that's 113 steps up there. Want to see a shortcut?" Tim declined, and she sighed, and started up the steps with him. He passed her by about midway saying "meet you at the top," to her "wow, American tall, American strong..." At the top, he allowed her to pitch her goods once more, then just offered her 50 RMB for walking with him (he didn't really want any of the stuff). She apparently said: "but I'm tired. How about 70?"

Through all of this, Tim managed to get some great shots. Here's another map with attached photos from his journey.

Beijing Day 3

After my conference and Tim's hike, he got cleaned up, and then we attended the conference banquet. It was an Imperial style meal. The strangest two things on offer (though none of it was completely normal...) were duck tongue (really, it actually TASTES like duck, but it has the consistency, of, well, what you would expect of tongue. weird) and sea cucumber (blech).