We arrived at 2 in the morning via the bus. The bus stopped, though, and let us sleep until about 5:30, which is about when the subway opens. But it didn’t really matter. He turned off the bus and opened the doors to let fresh air in while we slept, but that also invited a torrent of mosquitos in the early morning hours. You could not sleep with them landing on you and sucking your blood and buzzing in your ears. We had blankets which one could have theoretically hid under, but it was so warm, even at 4 in the morning, that using a blanket would result in a personal sauna.

It was a rough start to the morning, but we managed until the subway opened. Puujee and I went to her university, where we dropped off our bags. Since I hadn’t really done much on my laptop the entire time I was in Mongolia, I did just that while she finished up some stuff for her master’s thesis.

In that time, a couple friends of mine from Germany happened to be in Beijing for the day, so we met up. Without any specific goal in mind, we just walked around. There are a lot of bikes that you can rent via an app throughout China. They are locked until you unlock it through the app, but sometimes people don’t lock the bikes when they’re finished. We kept an eye out for unlocked bikes, and after maybe 40 minutes, we secured 3 bikes and drove around Beijing without any real destination. It was a lot of fun, and I would highly recommend doing that!

After a few days, Puujee and I went to the Great Wall of China. Badaling is the most popular (and touristy) spot to visit, so we decided we wanted to go to a different place. https://www.wanderlust.co.uk/content/ways-to-hike-great-wall-of-china/ had some info, and https://www.chinahighlights.com/greatwall/map.htm indicated that going from Jiankou to Mutianyu was quite nice. Armed with info from both sites, we took bus 916 to the village of Huairou. From there, we figured we would either go to Hexi or Jiankou. In Huairou, we were approached by a taxi driver who didn’t seem to understand Hexi, but he did understand Jianko, which determined which place we went to.

He wanted 200 yuan to take us there, which is about 30 USD. We figured it was a bit much, but with it being about an hour’s drive, we relented. We were originally planning on hiking to Mutianyu, but the driver explained that going to Xiangshui, which was to the west, was nicer, so we went that way instead.

The hike was brutal, but we persisted. A lot of the route we went on was in ruins, so we had to scramble for a quite a bit. Additionally, some of the parts of the wall were nearly vertical and were more climbing than walking.

We set up the tent on a guard tower and slept there for the night.

It was hot and humid out, and we ended up drinking most of our water on the first day already. After waking up the next morning, and with barely any water left, we decided we would cut it short and go to the first village we found.

It still took a little before we found one that looked accessible, and we were parched by then. We ended up bushwhacking it through a ravine from a broken part of the wall. That was really hard and frustrating because there was a thick layer of leaves over everything that obscured the rocks, causing us to trip and fumble a lot.

Eventually, we reached the bottom and got some fresh water from a spring in some village. I’m honestly not sure what village we reached, but I think we never managed to make it all the way to Xiangshui. While waiting for the bus, the same taxi driver that dropped us off happened to be there because he gets water from the spring. He agreed to take us back to the bus station for only 100, so we went instead of waiting until the only bus that was in the afternoon. We then returned to Beijing.

Puujee finished her master’s program, and we went to the ceremony.

With that done, it was time to move on. I wanted to see the Terracotta Army, but Puujee didn’t particularly want to. She decided to stay in Beijing while I went alone.

The train ticket there was about 89 USD, and it took 6 hours to reach the city.

You can’t buy tickets directly if you don’t have a Chinese ID card, so I ended up using https://search.china-diy-travel.com to buy some train tickets. Using the website https://www.seat61.com/China.htm#How%20to%20buy%20tickets, I used the promo code OCTZK to get the commission dropped from 10 to 5 USD. I later learned that trip.com is also a possibility and has an even lower commission at only about 3 bucks, so keep that in mind if you go to China.

The train went through many cities. Some inhabited, and some not. It’s pretty interesting, but China has been building tons of cities all over the country, with some of them not even being populated yet.

This video kind of touches on it, and this video goes into the topic more deeply. Side note: I just found out that there is a recreation of Jackson Hole, my hometown, in China! Man, If I had known that, I would have totally visited…

Also while on the train, there were your typical announcements as we approached each station. I noted down one of the things they said though because I found it so foreboding. “Passengers who do not reach their destination cannot get off.” Implying that if you do not manage to get out of the train and reach your destination, you are stuck on the train. I would have found “passengers who cannot get off will not reach their destination” to be more sensible. Later, as I did get off, I discovered that you could not leave the station without swiping your ticket, so I suppose there actually is some truth to that you cannot get off / get out of the station if you don’t get off at the right one because you surely won’t be allowed out at a later station. Something like Train California? You can disembark, but you can never leave? I dunno…

Anyway, I did get off at the right station. In the city, I walked around a bit and of course saw the army.

And then off to the army!

Honestly, I am not quite sure if it was worth going so far out of the way. The trip back to Huangshan, which was our next destination, cost 171 USD. Altogether, it was 89 and 171, and the entry to the Terracotta Army was 17 as well, meaning it cost 277 USD. I think if someone were to be passing through, I would recommend it, but I wouldn’t say one should go so far out of your way to see it unless you really like terracotta or something like that.

I met up with Puujee in Huangshan, or the Yellow Hills. They aren’t called the Yellow Hills because they are yellow but they were rather named after Emperor Huang Di, the “Yellow Emperor.” Additionally, the city of Huangshan never used to be called that. In an effort to get more tourism, the city of Junxti changed its name to the nearby hills. Locals still call that city Junxti, though.

We took a bus from Huangshan/Junxti to the town of Tangkou. From there, we took another bus into the park and got dropped off near a hot spring. For reference, there’s a good map here. We ended up hiking along the bottom left cable car and working our way over to the White Goose Ridge, with a few detours along the way.

I don’t think you’re supposed to wild camp, but we did it anyway. The first night, we just stayed by some building after asking the employees if it was all right to set up my tent on the concrete, which they were okay with. The next night, we managed to find a fairly hidden spot right off the main trail near “Bright Top” on the map.

 

We decided to take the White Goose Ridge cable car down. It was totally worth it because we ended up going right into and through a sea of clouds.

The Yellow Hills were nice, but they were also super busy. With so many cable cars, they are very accessible, and you see everyone from children to grandparents at the top. It was kind of funny. Puujee and I were hiking with these huge backpacks, sweating in the humid air. Next to us were hordes of Chinese tourists, a lot of them dressed to the nines. I’m talking about men in suits and women in evening gowns. I kept wondering where the corporate meetings and evening balls were being held at, but it seems most people just wanted some really nice photos at the top of these hills.

At the bottom, we swam in a pool for a bit.

That was until a police officer made us get out. No ticket, though, so that was nice. After drying off, we made our way back to the city of Huangshan. From there, we got the next bus to Shanghai and stayed at my friend’s place.

In Shanghai, we just went out a bit with my friend that moved there earlier that year. One night, we went to a restaurant, and I saw they had those century eggs, so I ordered some.

They were …okay. They actually weren’t as bad as I was prepared for. At first bite, I actually thought it was just a funky tasting hardboiled egg. After a few more bites, the difference became more pronounced. The consistency was certainly different, almost more like a hard Jell-o with the yolk being very mushy, and the taste was just somehow off. I had a few pieces, but that was it. I would say you should try it, if just for the experience.

We also went to a board gaming evening at a good-sized board game café in the city. Forgot to take a photo, though!

And, of course, we did walk around the city.

I went up the Shanghai Tower, which is the second tallest building in the world. At 632 meters or 2,073 feet, it certainly towers over the city. Unfortunately, the smog from the city obscured quite a bit of the vision…

We wanted to buy cheap tickets to Hong Kong, which meant we would take the slow train instead of the bullet train. Long story short, we were running around looking for tickets that didn’t seem to exist, but we ultimately did get some discounted tickets. A website I found mentions a Z99, we were told about some T99 by a friend, when we were purchasing our tickets, the computer said J99, and our tickets once we actually bought them were S99 or something like that. I can’t actually recall the other letters, but the point is, at almost every juncture, we were presented with a different letter and sometimes price, so I was rather confused.

Apparently, Puujee’s friend failed to inform us that the discount was only for groups of 4 or more, but luckily, the agent that we ended up talking to seemed to give it to us anyways. Originally, we kept getting quotes for the normal price, but Puujee persisted in getting the tickets for the price that her friend mentioned. I suppose the agent decided giving us the discounted tickets was easier than dealing with us, since Puujee was rather adamant that we get the tickets in question.

With our tickets secured, we boarded the train and spent the next 19 hours driving to Hong Kong.

 

I didn’t really like China, mostly due to political reasons. Of course, trying to get things in shops was tricky with the language barrier, but that was not really the fault of the people there. What I don’t like about China is the government. I don’t like how they restrict free speech and censor so many internet sites. I don’t like what they do to the Uighur population in the west, nor do I like their expansionist agenda in the south china sea. I also think it’s weird that Hollywood tries to always make China look good in modern movies. But the people were nice. I thought most Chinese people I met were nice and willing to help, even if their English wasn’t always great.

I hate to say it, but I would be fine if I never went back, and the great wall is the only redeeming quality for me. Like Russia, the people are fine. The government, not so much, but China’s government takes things even further. It’s a shame that a country with such a rich history is mired with such an authoritarian government today.