Travel Tuesday: The Great Wall Adventure

 {mine.}

Recently, I left my apartment in Beijing at about 11 am to pick up my ticket to Badaling, the closest train station to one of the Great Wall entrances (the closest to Beijing and therefore one of the most touristy). Since I had some extra time to kill, I had some lunch with my friend Rachel (best noodles ever, picked up from a little roadside noodlestand for less than a dollar for two bowls) before getting on the 2 pm train. I should add here that I did the whole trip alone, and that I'm also very glad I did.

The train ride to Badaling was nice, very beautiful- as soon as you leave the city, you're surrounded by mountains and greenery and its so calming, especially after weeks of city life. The first time I saw the wall was from the train, and, I immediately started smiling pretty wide - I just couldn't help it. I've heard about The Great Wall so often since I was a kid that it was pretty intense to finally be within its presence. It looked so beautiful - everything around it was so green and the way the sunlight struck it made it shine like gold.

Once I got to Badaling, I started the hike up to the Great Wall from the train station. Its high in the mountains, so the hike starts practically the second you get out of the train. The air is much cleaner up there, but of course its so thin its really not that different from breathing in Beijing. Unfortunately, it was about 4 by the time we got there and my train back to Beijing left at 6:30, so I didn't actually have that much time up there.

The place itself is amazing. It kind of sucks at first because there's just so many people, but once I hiked about twenty minutes the crowd really thinned out. Unfortunately, Badaling is a restored section of the wall (the last unrestored section was put under construction a few months ago), so it wasn't completely "authentic" but the restoration stuck pretty close to original specifications from what I can tell. At least, sections of the wall are so incredibly steep that I had to pause to rest as I scaled them. I climbed pretty far along and made it to the top of Hero's Peak, which is either the tallest point on the wall or just near Badaling, I'm not entirely sure. Judging by how rough the hike was though, I'd totally believe the first one.

Before I got to Hero's Peak, I met two people here, a guy who moved here 19 years ago after falling in love with China during a study abroad trip, and his uncle who teaches at Purdue. They were the first people on this trip that recognized my Texas Aggie tshirt (other than my friend Dan, who has a longhorn father).

After I got to the top of Hero's Peak, I turned off my camera and sat down in some shade, trying to meditate on the fact that I was there, that I was at *The Great Wall.* I tried to memorize the way the breeze felt and the cool, solid stones behind my back; I wanted to focus on the living part of it. Especially now that I'm so focused on making it as a photographer, I so often feel like I get stuck behind the camera, seeing everything but not really witnessing it, and I wanted to be a witness to that moment. It was one of the rare ones where there was no one within sight or hearing distance and I almost felt like I had the wall all to myself. I leaned back and stared at the sky, the first time I'd seen it truly blue in over a month, and with my eyes I followed the snaking progression the wall made in either direction from the point where I sat, the tan stone battlements and watch towers one with the mountains and nature they curled through.

The whole scene had a pure earthly quality about it. I almost wrote "otherwordly," but that's entirely false -it was perfectly earthly. The whole place seemed like it belonged, like it had sprung up straight from nature, like it had always been there and always would be. The place was stoic - it had seen attacks waged, battles won. It had been forgotten, allowed to fall apart, and rediscovered, rebuilt. Over and over again it has been rebuilt by men, and still it is something beyond man, something ancient, wise, that can never be reckoned with. It will watch the sun set tonight, the sun rise tomorrow, and the same will go on beyond us, beyond our children, and beyond their children.

Of course, the moment there couldn't last forever. More hikers arrived, and I realized I had reached the time when I needed to turn back in order to make the last train back to Beijing.

I found my way off the wall and hiked in the actual woods to the side of the wall on my way back down, which I definitely recommend trying if/when you make it out there. There are sections of the wall, especially in Badaling, where people are allowedto sell things, but if you hike in the woods you can escape them. That walk gave me views of the wall I would have never seen otherwise, and it was very peaceful (not to mention cool in the shade). The hike down was also a little easier, which my body seriously appreciated.

After such a nice time hiking (though I'll admit it was insanely hot, and it definitely showed me that I'm not in the best shape of my life), I was reluctant to return to the city. In fact, when I noticed I could actually see the brown cloud of pollution hanging over the city from pretty far out, I momentarily wanted to turn back. But I knew a bed and a job and friends awaited me, so I didn't.

On the train ride back I was already thinking I'd like to go back to the Great Wall someday. If its ever done being under construction and the Chinese government allows it, I think it would be cool to hike the whole length of it, and to sleep on it at night. Apprently you can get special dispensations to camp there overnight now, so I assume it wouldn't be terribly hard to wrangle a week or two long hike (I have no idea how long a hike of that length would take).

[Blogger is really having problems with photos today, so I'll have to upload more photos another day. Hope you enjoyed this!]

Travel Tuesday: San Francisco

travelling has always been a passion of mine. one not really lived out until recently. the idea of flying to far away countries, crossing oceans and completely devouring a new culture is perfection to me. i still have yet to mark off even a quarter of the places on my to go list but the thought of what lies ahead of me makes me more giddy then anything. a few weeks i traveled from my home in north carolina to nevada and california. even though this trip was a baby step in comparison to where i'd like to travel, i really did have the time of my life. lake tahoe, the golden gate bridge... it was incredible. i've been dreaming over these pictures since i returned so i thought i'd share a few today:)

thanks valorie for asking me to guest post! have fun in china!

photos from my flickr.



Nicole is on awesome twenty-something that blogs at my teacups in peony and can be found on twitter at @teacupsinpeony.

Travel Tuesday: Jamaica

A Not Fully Relaxing Vacation

I was very excited for the end of the semester; no school, summer sun, and vacation!  This summer would be especially fun because my parents and I were going to Ocho Rios, Jamaica two days after I finished school.

The first sign of trouble happened the night before we flew out.  My parents were hosting their annual Kentucky Derby Party (which used to be a family fun pool party, but now that the kids were all grown up in college it was now an dinner party… with lots of booze).  I was the only person under 40 (actually, more like 50) but having fun watching the adults act like fools.  The only problem was that my teeth really hurt.

Back story, when I was a freshman in high school I was on swim team.  One morning during practice I landed face-first on concrete and knocked out some teeth, and ever since senior year I’ve had a crown. 

Recently, my crown had come loose but it wasn’t really bothering me.  During the party, it started to ache really bad and even made the teeth on either side hurt too.  I took a few extra strength Tylenol and was good to go.

Until about 1:00 am when I wasn’t able to sleep because my teeth hurt even worse.  Tylenol didn’t even help, and around 5:00 am I fell asleep merely because I was so exhausted.  When it was time to wake up at 6:30 I was a wreck, and told my mom how much I was hurting.  No way were we canceling our trip, so I took more Tylenol, my dad packed another anti-inflammatory and codeine, and were off to the airport.

Basically throughout the next several hours, I took multiple codeine because the pain grew more and more intense and the pain killer would wear off quicker and quicker.  Once we reached the resort, I went to see the nurse who gave us the name of a dentist in town. 

Needless to say I was freaking out.  I was exhausted and tripping on pain killers and they wanted me to see a dentist in JAMAICA?!  I was waiting for some ghetto, hole in the wall clinic where they would rip out my tooth and then be prescribed marijuana…  It didn’t turn out that way.

After a long wait, the dentist took an X-Ray and discovered that I had an infection in my gums.  I was prescribed some pills (no marijuana in sight) and told to not drink alcohol.  That sucked a little, but I was willing to do anything for the pain to be gone.

That afternoon I spent sleeping in the hotel room while my parents had fun on the beach and at the pool.  By the next day I was okay enough to join them at the pool, although I felt so stupid because my upper lip was super swollen, I had abscess growing on my gums, and when I smiled I looked LITERALLY deformed.

The day after that I woke up with my lip a little less swollen, the abscess larger, and no pain.  It was our last full day in Jamaica, so we decided to go on one of the excursions.  We went to a beautiful botanical garden (where my abscess popped and LORD was it disgusting and bloody), did a little shopping downtown (where I WAS offered marijuana and did not take it, sorry) and then climbed the Dunn’s River Falls. 

Quite the trip, eh?  At least I didn’t bow out of going on the trip… because we found out that my local dentist was out of town!  So I managed to have a fun (and interesting) trip, and I hope anyone else reading this decides to go to Jamaica because it’s BEAUTIFUL!

Allison Blonder is an awesome twenty-something that blogs at Take Me or Leave Me and can be found on twitter at @allison_blonder. 

Travel Tuesday: Quetico Provincial Park

In all of my other travels, I haven’t ever felt like I was part of where I was. I found it very humbling, sitting in a canoe in the Canadian wilderness. On the American side, it called the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The Canadian side is Quetico Provincial Park. I had been to this area twice before, but each time was just as awe-inspiring as the first. The first time I went I was young and hadn’t ever been on a trip like this before. I was carefree and oblivious. By my third trip, I was more prepared. I had experience; I knew what to do and how to do it.

We flew to Minneapolis/St. Paul and drove to Ely, passing through fields and forests. In Ely we got our canoes and our packs, full with eight days of food. We paddled in lakes so big you couldn’t see from one shore to the other. On days it rained we paddled hard, desperate to hit land and make fire and put on dry socks. On windy days the lakes would get choppy and threaten to tip us over.

On my first trip, the waves would get big and I’d hop up and down in my seat, lifting the canoe over one wave and cutting it through the next until my dad told me to stop. On my third trip, one canoe got anxious and started heading for the rougher waters by the shore, waves rebounding off rocks and rolling back into other waves. I remained in the middle of the lake and headed for calmer waters sitting behind an island. We had the wind at our backs after that and we paddled to the portage. Later, my dad would say that my decision was probably the best in that situation.

We ate oatmeal for breakfast, tearing open the pouch and pouring it directly into our mouths. We drank Kool-Aid the same way. Lunches and dinners were advertised as beef stroganoff or chicken a la king, but could also have been called rice and meat. We would fish on the days we didn’t travel, taking the canoes out to the middle of the lake and hoping to catch some real food. On my first trip, we’d wade out into the lake with salami on fishing line and catch crayfish, careful not to let them pinch us. We put them in a pot as we caught them and boiled them later, pulling apart their red shells for the meat underneath. On my second trip, we found wild blueberries behind our campsite and picked the area clean. We’d scour every campsite for wild blueberries from then on.

We would canoe in lakes that were dammed by beavers, getting out to push our canoe over the logs and into the next section of the lake. We would float through channels standing in our canoes like gondoliers or wading alongside and guiding it around the bends. We swam in water so clear that we could see thirty feet down to the lake floor and we sat in our canoes by cliffs where someone had drawn antelope and moose or traced their hands centuries earlier. We were immersed in nature.

I cannot articulate exactly how Quetico makes me feel, but this quote by John Muir comes pretty close: “Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature's sources never fail.”

 

 

Travis is slowly accepting that his writing can be good and rarely turns things in on time. You can read his blog at http://www.travismaybe.tumblr.com and if you ask, he may let you read his tweets at http://www.twitter.com/maybetravis

{Photo by Jay Light}

Travel Tuesday: Seattle, WA

The Secret of Seattle

(Subtitle: Why Washingtonians Tell Everybody it Rains All the Time)

I currently live in Texas, because one day I decided to go to graduate school and work with a well-known psychophysiological aggression researcher. Although I love the program I'm in, I am frequently reminded how much I am not a Texan.

Most of the time when people ask me where I'm from (usually after I giggle because somebody says "fixin' to" or "y'all") I say "Seattle." [If I say "Washington," they automatically assume I meant D.C., and I have to politely tell them that I'm from the complete opposite side of the country.] Their response inevitably includes something about how rainy and cloudy Seattle is, and I must have moved to Texas as soon as I could to enjoy the warm weather.

Yeah, that's it.

Really, us Washingtonians lie. We all pretend that it rains significantly more than it actually does so that you all don't decide to move to our favorite place in the world.

If everybody knew, there'd be far too many people moving here. Shh, don't spoil the secret.

(You really should visit, though! May through August are the prettiest months, but it stays temperate almost all year-round.)

Sar is a mid-20s graduate student at Baylor University. She's attempting to earn her PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience. Her hobbies include photography, working out, and drinking Diet Coke (breakfast of champions). Sar also teaches an introductory statistics course, which means her students think she's ridiculous for thinking numbers are cool. Her full name is Sarah but even her good friends forget how it's spelled so she goes by Sar. You can find Sar at love love love is all you need or @lovelovelovesar.