Simataiiiiiiii!

Friday night 3 of my friends here and I decided we needed to get OUT of the city and away from the drama of dorm life. Yep, even when you are in your early to mid-20s, there can be drama in the dorm. Nothing crazy, but we needed to get away. We had been wanting to go to Simatai pretty much since our first weekend here and our less than perfect cattle-herding like visit to Badaling, a crazy-popular Great Wall tourist spot complete with a Starbucks. Buyao! (I don't want)

Simatai is a 2 1/2 hour bus ride out of Beijing. Helen, Jennie, Laura and I woke up bright and early (5:45!) to head to the tourist bus station. Jennie's tour book said we could only buy tickets between 6:50 and 7:30 so we wanted to make sure we were early enough to get tickets on the 'luxury bus' that would take us to Simatai. (NOTE: everytime I said Simatai I would do it in a semi-annoying high-pitched voice and hold the last "I" for a good 30 seconds. I will re-enact it for you when I get home). Anyways, we got to the ticket window and asked for Simatai, the nice lady gestured to a part of the parking lot where people were sitting and said, "Wait a moment." Well, a moment turned into abour 45 minutes and we were getting confused. Two more times Jenne and I went up and asked again, "Simatai?" and she gave us the same, now curt, reply. Then, the third time she gestured to a bus, so we all got on. Maybe we pay once we're on the bus? Nope, we had to get off the bus to get the tickets.

After a slight miscommunication on ticket prices, we got back on the bus, tickets in hand, ready for the driver to crank the AC. (I don't think I will EVER get used to the heat here, it is literally suffocatingly hot...every day.) We grabbed seats, and I took out the "Oracle Bones" to read on the almost 3-hour drive. Then, the driver came in, said a bunch of things in Mandarin, and everyone groaned. Apparently we were moving to a smaller bus. As we boarded the smaller one, we realized all the seats were full and there was no place to sit. A family travelling with 2 boys moved them out of seats so we could sit, but then 5 German guys came on and there was NO way we were all fitting on that bus. BACK to the bigger one. And that's where we stayed. I've adopted the mantra "Welcome to China!" and I say it whenever things don't really make sense to us or it appears that things are being done in a less-than-efficient way.

The bus ride was uneventful, except for the fact that our bus driver was driving extremely fast, so we made it to Simatai in less than 2 1/2 hours. As soon as we got off, we were hit with a wave of heat, but we were SO pumped to be there. Already we could tell it would be much different from Badaling. Badaling was swarming with tourists and Chinese there making a day of it. Simatai was practically deserted, and it was a Saturday!

We began by taking a cable car (pic above) up the hill and then a mini train so we could get on the Wall. We wanted to spend as much time as possible ON the Wall, so we payed a little extra (about $7) to get up there a little faster. The Wall in Simatai is the original wall, not like the reconstructed one in Badaling, so that makes it a little more dangerous--more steep, no steel handrails to hold on to, much more sloping. It was so beautiful. Unfortunately it was not a clear day, so our pictures will not have a clear blue sky. We hiked up to one of the watch towers and began our descent down. We took our time, savoring the sights and the silence! There were parts where we had an entire section of the Wall to ourselves, and it was great.

Pic below: the four of us after our lunch break.

About 2 hours in, we made it to the zipline. Helen and Jennie were all about it, but Laura and I were a little more apprehensive. We were VERY high up. HUNDREDS of feet...zipping over a river. Helen and Jennie paid and got in line, Laura and I stayed behind. But after ten minutes of standing there, we decided to JUST DO IT. When would we ever have the opportunity to zipline off the freaking Great Wall?! We could even zip down together. We were buckled into safety harnesses (similar to mountain climbing ones) and then snapped into a carribeaner on the line. So Laura and I screamed our way down, and it was amazing. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Pic above: Laura and I coming in on the zipline!

Once we got down, we had to take a boat across the river back to the Wall. We had a celebratory Tsingtao (beer) and got back on the bus. It was my favorite day here, by far.