well if you made it this far, then welcome to the great wall

we are still alive, feels like from blind chance we have been spared, by dumb luck we weaved thru trucks and bikes, cars and wagon, motorcycles and minivans, on laneless mountain roads surrounded by the worst drivers i have seen so far, the two lane road leading to a more remote part of the great wall is a chinese driving free for all death defying experience, we were passengers in a car piloted by chris's friend angela, friend of his girl jenny (thier english names)

angela has never driven that far outside beijing in her life and essentially should never try it again, at first i felt like this is just the way people drive here, but when chris started freakin out i though we were doomed for sure, on our way out we stopped for some country style food, a giant fish butchered outside the window and served in three coarses, a soup with the tail, garlic sauce boney chunks with the middle, and the head broiled- staring coldly at you as you devour the hind parts, we also had cornbread and tofu soup, quite the meal, our last i assumed later...

but we made it, the chinese beleive you are not a real man until you have climbed the wall, i say you are not a real man until you survive the car ride leading to the wall, either way, i now am a man, we took a sky car part of the way, hiked up the rest, the fresh air was great, for chris and i are now sick, (feeling a whole lot better today, nobody needs to be around a sick evans) and the wall was breath taking, just the small portion we saw was such a massive creation and it stretches the horizon up and down jagged peaks as far as the eye can see, we were followed to the top by 3 women determined to sell us tourist junk, they were regional farmers, darker skin, very nice, and absolutely hell bent on selling me some chopsticks and hopper some postcards, i gave in after relentless bargaining, i was determined to experience at least a part of the wall without being surrounded by these hawkers.....we walked all the way back and were relieved to see chris behind the wheel, (though at night the road is even scarier, chris did a good job surviving us back to beijing) alas we rewarded ourselves with hotpot- a sichuan style food that is incredible, two boiling pots of water in the middle of the table, one spicy one with other flavors, you order all types of food to throw into the broth, cook and dip into a variety of sauces, you are waited on hand and foot, a young man tosses fresh noodles around like a cowboy doing lasso tricks and eventually tosses it into your hotpot, we came home and slept like babies....what will today bring......i'll have to write later on previous events unspoken of so far.....hopper and i's 1 1/2 hour massage, and playing blues at a chinese bar with the owner on piano, (i may be on youtube as i was being filmed, but let's hope not)