Conquering the Great Wall... while people try to hustle us

If you never heard... Ann and I are BEASTS! And since Jihad and Lachman have been here... We have been partying every night. Now the night before venturing the great wall was no exception. We went out and did not go to sleep at all for our 10K (4 hour) mainly uphill walk on uneven steps. So I will recap what happened before we left for the wall

4:15 Out partying with friends... realize i need to go ASAP to make sure my boy and his fam get to the airport.

4:20 Leave straight from party area to his place

4:45 Arrive at their place

5:00 get them into cabs, cab back ourselves

5:30 change clothes, grab snacks and water for our trip

6:30 get to bus station leave for great wallish area

Ok, so this trip almost turned into a disaster, we are on the bus to a city where we will take another bus, when we get to the city, the bus tells us to get off at a random place, now both of us were sleeping and were incoherent so we just get off, right in front of about 10 cars who were tryin to hustle us and make us pay way too much. We then walk to a hotel and ask what do u we do, then walk to a bank, then end up walking around this whole city. Eventually, we realize that no one will give us directions if they think that I'm with Ann. So "we" decide that we need to be 10 meters apart at all times... clearly this worked like a charm, so we board that same bus that we were on and take it to the terminal station, where we then again run into a bunch of people in cars tryin to hustle us the same way. We find this couple who is trying to go to the same place, we basically team up with them and find a guy who has credentials(maybe they were fake) to take us up to the area we were tryin to go. This worked out real well, even with this hella extra pushy dude, who I had to physically move away from my new friends. It takes us about an hour to get to the area of the great wall we were tryin to go.

So after about 2 hours of listening to BS from people who were all pretty much against me (note not "We"), and trying to get me to pay way too much money, we make it to the wall.

Now this area of the wall again was dangerous, had hella steps and was extra hard and not the most kept up place. Now if you read closely, in no time did I mention eating a meal and it was hot, so i was dehydrated and hungry, and sadly and stupidly we were low on money, so we couldnt buy snacks. However we did have some snacks that we brought and enough water to make the trip. We also bought a coke for the sugar content! Well we walked the wall, and had to turn down a bunch of snacks and souvenirs even from the guy who said that he'd show us a "shortcut" (yeah... right)

Anyway, It's much better to show it in pictures, but it was a "perfect" day and i could not have asked for a better day to see one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. Also there were not that many people so it made it even that much more special... Absolutely an AMAZING time, without a doubt the best hike i've ever taken in my life.



We make it to the other area and decide to take a bus back to the first bus station, to save money, because again we were getting low on cash. This bus was like the buses that you see in the movies low budget, lots of bumps, not the most comfortable seats, packed etc etc. We eventually make it back to the bus station and board the bus back to Beijing, and realize that our little 2 hour hangup is making us late for the track meet, we eventually make it back and we are rushing like crazy, I make it back to D's apartment and there is no key to let me back in, eventually he comes back lets me in, we rush hella late back to the stadium and eventually make it back JUST in time for the 4x100 relay and another Bolt world record.

Afterwards we grab dinner and Ann and I decide you know what... we're goin to go out again tonight, but not for too long just until like 2am... Clearly, we didnt get in until after 4am!


special note just to make Maggie Hope jealous- remember when we watched Nigera v. USA and Argentina v. Serbia? Nigeria V. Argentina was the gold medal match! Pretty cool huh HOPE!!!