The next day Thursday, 13th of September 2018, we travelled 2.5hrs to Jinshan ling to walk the wall. Certainly a different experience to what we expected. Wow - the first thing you notice is the lack of people, hardly anyone walks this section of the wall. The second is the absolutely awesomeness of this construction, it goes for miles and miles. Up and down and around we went, sections of slippery slate and sections of bricks arranged lengthwise - different to our wall construction technique. Clearly it works as it has been there since prior to the Kublai Khan invasion. We managed to go to the end and then took the scenic route down the mountain and exited out a different gate. Goes down as one of the great hikes ever!
Lunch was at a local house, I had beans and chicken and Michael had potatoes and beef. Plain and delicious, not spicy at all. Car broke down just outside Beijing, our guide was stressing a little and we were not allowed out of the car. Luckily we were off the highway. DI DI to our rescue, the China equivalent of Uber got us safely back to our hotel.
We duplicated our previous nights steps with a bit more adventuring into side streets - our orientation skills were tested and we passed. We are so full from lunch that there is no dinner requirement. There is always a need for a Starbucks Frappuccino and Soya latte so we generally walk with the idea of finding a Starbucks. Why do we not go to any other place??? The language barrier makes it difficult to explain that we want coffee or even tea, the answer is alway the same - ‘we don’t have’ even though we can see there must be. I asked for green tea on the train. Well that was my problem - there is hot water but you must be savvy enough to bring your own container and tea and then you can have it at no cost!!! Another example of differences is the coffee at Y31 equivalent 62Rands and a noodle and meat dish or a rice and meat dish at Y22 to Y28 so 44Rand to 56Rand clearly there are coffee taxes.
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