We purchased a small table and chairs for our balcony on the weekend and the weather is finaly nice enough for us to sit out side after work. We are sitting here enjoying the evening as I write this. The table had to be small as our balcony is 1 meter wide and about 20 meters long. The Japanese don’t realy do the sitting on the balcony thing. Isn’t our viw awsome —- HAHAHAHA
Bets and I went for a walk to the park neer our home on Sunday to see the trees in bloom,here are a few photos.
This was a beautiful Japanese Garden hidden away in the park.
The Buddhist temple in the park was having a festival so the monks were playing music.
The temple
Please forgive spelling & gramer errors as I am posting most of this from an iTouch that has limited abilities and a tiny keyboard.
Ciao
M
Up early to depart at 6:45 am for a 3 hour bus ride to the start point. The tour is an 8K hike of a part of the wall that has not been restored. After 2 hours on the bus we finaly see the mountains that one associates with the great wall. Another hour later we arive at our destination where we at given 3 ticket’s & a postcard each and informed not to loose them as they will be needed along the way. This was advertised as having no shopping.. What a farce, we get off the bus and there are vendors. Why would I even consider packing this stuff 8K. We walk about 200 meters and produce ticket 1 and after another 200 meters we round the corner to start up the stair to the wall and there they are the sellers… at the time I hand idea they would tag along for the trip – BUT THEY DID well half way – So we both do our best to ignore them. We start up the stairs and after about 150 meters of a 300 meter vertical incline I think I’m going to die. Reach the wall an think well this was worth it I’m on the Great Wall of China. Climbed a short distance to the first of 30 towers and look at the wall ahead an think sh$& what was I thinking but off we go. Things seem to be going well after three towers of mostly up hill walking when the group of heavy smokers pass by as I’m wheezzing away.
To say the first half of this hike is hard is an understatement. After about 1 and half hours we get to an extremely steap climb to tower 15 the halfway point and I’m not sure I can climb this one but alas I survive to write about it. When we get to tower 15 it’s time for our two tagalongs to go to work. Mind you I can barely walk and these two folks that are at least my age if not older are barely breathing hard. Realizing this person has hiked along with me and helped with the most difficult climbing parts of the hike I succumb to the book offered without to much bargaining. We exit the tower and have some lunch sharing some of our food with two nice men nearby. Get on our way and realize these nice men are our new tagalongs for the second half of our walk. After a couple of short inclines it was mostly downhill. Near the end bets started having internal issues that made for some interesting moments. We reached the check point for the finale trek and quickly bargin for two shirts and directions to a bush toilet. Our tagalongs say no problem and say this way. We produce the second of or tickets and bets get detected to a set of stairs off the wall.
After a short relief stop we decend a devilish flight of steep steal stairs to the rope bridge that cross’s the river. After crossing the river on the bridge we are required to produce ticket 3, sure glad I kept track of those tickets. We climb a few rock steps go through an archway and loo
k up the last flight of stairs & think what did I do to deserve this. This is the absolute worst climb I’ve ever done. Get to top with wobley knees & decide to take the zip line down to the departure point, what a great finish to a great day.
This is a from a cool web sit called wordle where I pasted in the text from this post and it created this graphic. Click on it to go to the site and see the full size image.
Today we decided to do a walking tour from the lonley planet book. We headed out to the tourist info office to check on another tour. On the way there we stumbled uppon a very cool kite shop. Pick out some cool kites to buy but were low on cash so we continue on our way with a plan return. We get to the tourist office to discover that there is no such tour to wherever want to go and to go there by train would take 2 days so decide not to go. We notice on the map were at one of the walking tours so decide to do that one. Walk along by a nice lake lined with restauraunts, at one point the path takes out onto a street where we wander into a tea shop and spend a whole tasting tea. Walk out 45 miniutes later with cool tea cups, tea, and verious other dodads. Very meet experience. Continue on and find a very meet shopping street where we purchase many great items, thank you mr visa. We finaly get to the Drum Tower to find it closed for renovation so we head over to the bell tower. We climb some very steep stairs to see a masive bell which was the main way for the people of the early empires to know what time it was. It’s time for business, taxi to bank, taxi back to grocery store to get supplies for trip to old part of great wall then relax at a roof top bar for a few beers. We head ban to hotel then to an evening at the national acrobatics show. This was an incredible experiance. If your ever in Bejing this is a must see. I’ll write more about this later.
Took a taxi to tienamen square, this took at least 40 min. To go about 3K. Wandered the square for about 30 miniutes then went accrost the road to the forbiden city. Went in the wrong entrance, spent a half an hour in a garden that had not awoken from it’s winter slumber. Finaly followed the crowds and found the proper entrance. Wandered through the first courtyard that is largwr than a footbal field. Found a place to grad a bite – not very good. Finaly entered the main palace area. We get through the first building and I start to realize how vast this place dealt is. We read that that the forbidden city is over 1 sq kilometer & I now believe it. Explore for about 4 hours when they finaly give us the boot. Back to hotel to freshen up then went to the night market for an evening bite. Chose to avoid the fried scorpion, roaches, grubs, seahorse, starfish, various animal penis’s, etc….. Decided on the pork sandwitch and beer. Taxi back to our neighborhood for a nightcap then to bed.
Sitting in Seoul wishing I had an iPhone instead of iTouch so I could post a picture. Nice airport with lots of shops. Very comfy. This is good as we spend many hours here on our way home, to bad most are in the middle of the night.
This is a blog post from my iTouch using the WordPress application. If you use a worspress blog you shoul try it out.