China Cont.

Emperor Greg and his concubine...
(This guy on the left I will get to in another installment. Very good story)

I know you're dying for more pics so here are a few more: Just remember I was basically camping there as Greg thought it would be "SO FUN!" to stay in a hostel with my sister and really "feel China". Which, I have to say, we really did get a better idea of what China really was when we stayed right where they live, breathe and work. We stayed in a Houtong which is a old community where there are high walls all around and little houses all connected together with shared courtyards. No bathrooms, just a shared one outside of the main living area. Mind you, our hostel was modernized and we had our own bathroom with a queen bed so we we're too bad off. If I had to do it over again, I'd stay in the hostel...

Here is my sister and I doing the "practice walk through" on the wall 2 days prior. I was basically sore for the next two days and totally whining about it. "How can they take us on the wall and expect us to run in two days!"

From behind us you can see over to the left a tower of part of the wall. That is what we came down to. We first had to run up three miles of a winding road to get to the wall. Below is us going up. Luckily we got to stop many times for photo-ops.

And another one going down (and of course back up again). At this point I am basically sweating like a pig over coals. My jeans turned into a sort-of damp denim cast that was very hard to bend mind you! I had a great time recounting the "Friends" episode where Ross sweats in his leather pants and can't get them pulled up again after going to the bathroom. And here we are on the shuttle going back into Beijing- a 3 hour bus ride one way. Can you see we are a bit nervous about running this thing? And below the promised picture of me eating some sort of pupae (that is a bug in larvae stage although it felt and tasted like a cow in larvae stage). Think Big Hungry Catapillar eats Whale...
And me not loving my decision so much to be impulsive and "wild!" in Beijing. Let me describe: A kind of leathery, rubbery outer shell that snaps upon impact to reveal a sort of cottage cheese like texture with a taste that is part pus, part wood, and part 1 week old grease.