Carla Comes to China

my good friend Carla finished her school in Tokyo and decided to come adventure with me around china. our main plan of attack, guangzhou, huangshan, and finally beijing. these photos should pretty much sum up the experience

Carla's first meal at the dining hall
wooo subway!
the view from the top of our hostel in Tan Jai Qiao
xiaogang park
my adventure into the local village on the first day in huangshan after catching up on not sleeping for 26 hours and an 18 hours train ride.

the hostel lobby when carla woke up from the long sleep after the train ride
our afternoon wanderings into the hills


Day 2: Huangshan

we meetup with an Italian couple form Shanghai and shared a taxi to huangshan and spent about half the day hiking together

bamboo forest on the way to nine dragon waterfall
the Italian couple
the endless stairs that haunt me in china
after and hour and half of stairs and hiking this was not worth the walk
finally heading up the mountain and not down! this tram ride was amazing, it took us a ton of confusion and frustration to get up here but it was well worth it


beginning to believe peak i think, unbelievably epic.

hipster pose with the found tour hat
it was too cloudy to get many good shots this day but i tried, it gave it an interesting feel.
tired after a lonnng day of hiking.
Day 3:
this day i took a bike ride to the local city of Song Ke. on the way back a man on a motorcycle stopped to talk to me. to my surprise he spoke with a perfect british accent. i was surprised enough to hear english as no one really spoke it in this area and to hear that accent was crazy. anywho he owned a restaurant close to the mountain in Tang Kou which he claimed to have really good banana pancakes. i talked to him for a little while got his card and then continued riding home. later that night me and carla grabbed a taxi to meet simon at his restaurant for some good dinner since the hostel didnt have much access to any real food.

Simon's daughter
she loved to make this face, she was really photogenic
her first portrait
and her first self portrait, kids love the sound of the shutter clicking
Simon and his daughter
apple pancakes, amazing!
Day 4:
as Simon suggested we went to the north side of the mountain to see the see the canyon. it was finally a good clear day and the views were amazing. carla did some sketching while i hiked around to get some photos.




more stairs......

this is the view from where i ate my lunch (an apple) it was amazing

one of the many amazing pines there
this is how they carry everything in or out of the mountain. these guys carry hundreds of pound of food/building materials/drink/anything. hiking these stairs is already tough but with 200 pounds on your back its crazy.

Day 5:
We took a bus to Beijing after staying at Stephens bed and breakfast in Tunxi which was a humble experience after the last hostel. we had a great duck dinner and comfy beds. we caught a overnight sleeper bus in the afternoon which was a nice surprise. the beds were really comfy, although they placed trance music with softcore strippers on the tv for a few hours which was something else. we watched a ton of friends and weeds until our computers died.

i woke up in traffic jam to see this out the window, these arent pets

the glorious sleeper bus
day 6:
Beijing! we made it. the bus ride took about 2o hours. we found our way to our hostel close to the forbidden city, it was a really nice little courtyard house with lots of bright colors. in an attempt to seize the day we decided to hit up Tianamen square and the forbidden city.

the entrance to our hostel

Go communism!

Tianamen
had to get a photo with Mao
we decided to take a bunch of jumping photos from then on, its just more fun






what ive dubbed the jackson pollock tree, the trees in the back of the city were the best part in my opinion.
we made it through the whole place in about an hour and i felt satisfied. we wandered back and grabbed some dinner with some fellow travelers from the hostel.
Day 7:
the Badaling section of the great wall, due to the last minute decision to go we had to go to the more touristy section. it was ok, but not that great in my opinion. i couldnt believe they put up a huge billboard for the olympics, if somehow you didnt know about them already. anywho we had our fun and got some souvenirs.

more jumping photos!




Day 8:
Carla left early in the morning to fly back to Japan and i got up early and left for a 4 hour bus ride to one of the more remote parts of the wall. we got dropped off and had to hike about 10km along the wall to the pickup point. this part was much better than badaling. as you walked farther you got to see the wall in its more original state and its non-repaired sections.

the beginning of the hike. this section was somewhat reconstructed as you can see



finally hitting some more worn down parts
Sam on the right was from New Zealand and on the right was Rodrigo from Colombia. both were really cool guys and we had some good talks walking along the wall.

getting to the really amazing parts

pretty damn steep
and here is why this was sooo much better than the day before, unreconstructed and original. this actually felt like the GREAT wall.

one for the parents at the end of the hike


a good view and what i had concluded was a large lesbian hiking group. there were 3o woman dressed in full hiking gear and only a guy as a guide. what would you think?

zipline down to get picked up. sooo fun

Day 10:
heading back guangzhou, yay for 22 hour train ride.

saying goodbye to the hostel
sorry this post took so long. ive been all dazed getting back into school after traveling like that and ive just been running around quite a lot. enjoy the photos and stories. there is just sooo much to tell but it would take me forever to write out the entire experience, but it was really amazing despite a lot of the frustration of language and unforeseen holiday weekends. i cant wait to start traveling again.