The Mid-Autumn Festival is a three day celebration in September, when everything corporate shuts down to participate in the setting off of fireworks and eating of mooncakes (I am no expert, please wikipedia for more info if you want it ☺). It also means that the school takes us on another vacation-yay! That being said, I am afraid the entry on our break will be rather brief, as it was awhile ago and I have been to busy to write.
The trip started with us meeting up at the school bright and early at 7am. Sounds terrible, but it’s not so bad when you get McDonalds provided for breakfast! We set out on the buses for a town in the mountainous region near Beijing, called Longqing Valley. The bus ride as supposed to take about 7 hours, but thanks to the ridiculous and consistent traffic on the highway from Hohhot to Beijing, it took 13. Needless to say, when we arrived we ate dinner, had a few brews, and went to bed. Our hotel very pleasantly pleased us, mostly in that it was a hotel, and not some tent on the side of the road. It even had enclosed showers, the first I have seen since I have been in China! It really is the little things in life that make me happy.
The next morning we were made to get up again, at 7am. It turns out that when you go on a Chinese vacation with a tour guide, you are under that guides command. We first went to the actual Longqing Valley, which was very beautiful, but also pretty touristy. The area surrounding the mountain reminded me of Duloc from Shrek, it was that pristine and orderly. You enter a the lower part of the mountains, and take escalators, enclosed in a plastic, yellow dragon (seriously, check my pics on Facebook) to the top. When you get up there, a large dam creates a beautiful lake in the Valley. We took boats around the lake, surprisingly very cold in the high climate and rainy weather. It was here, in this valley, that I went Bungee Jumping.
Yup, that’s right. In China, where the entirety of my instruction was that I should fall forward, and, no I couldn’t fall backwards, I went Bungee Jumping. Yes, I do know this was a very dangerous place to do such a thing. They actually told us at first that we would not be able to go, because of the rain, but after it dried off a little, they remembered they could make some money of the crazy Westerners, and let us do it. Out of the 30 or so of us on the trip, only 4 us went, and one was actually one of the Chinese staff! It cost 100 yuan, which is the equivalent of $15. What a deal, huh?! At first, I was the only one who was going to do it, but then of course, the men couldn’t let me show them up! The bungee cord was strapped to my ankles, and I was told to walk out on a mini ledge that was about 5 inches long. The guy had me put my arms out, and held me by the belt loop of my pants. The next part happened very quickly, but I do recall the man counting down from 3, and giving me a slight push off the ledge.
Yes, a push. Not a shove or anything, but enough that I couldn’t have stayed on the ledge if I wanted to. I am actually kind of grateful that he did, otherwise I would not have gone off the ledge so easily! The initial fall happened quite quickly, and yes, I screamed the whole way down. After that it was more of just an upside sightseeing trip. It was tons of fun, don’t get me wrong, but man, the blood really rushes to your head! I didn’t feel the jolting of the bungee cord, that part was actually quite smooth. The most interesting thing, though, was how I got out of the bungee cord. We were hoping the wouldn’t just drop us into the water, originally because of the whole cold weather thing, but upon upside-down closer inspection, the realization that there was a layer of rocks under the water, right where we bungee’d. Luckily, the Chinese are quite crafty. They pulled a boat up under me, where I grabbed onto a long stick and was pulled down into the boat.
Later that afternoon, following more boats around the Valley and lunch, we went to a Safari Zoo. It was really neat; we stayed on a bus and drove from to animal enclosure to enclosure. We got to see a variety of animals, lots of lions and tigers and bears (oh my!). We also saw things like domesticated dogs (a cocker spaniel, etc) in cages. Chinese zoos are cool is some aspects, but in others, are quite sad. Unfortunately, there were no Pandas at that zoo.
After the zoo we headed to the Great Wall at Badaling. It is one of the most touristy areas of the wall, which means it is also one of the most well-kept. And let me tell you, it is a Great Wall! Some of the areas have steps, and some ramps. Some areas are almost flat, and some are really steep. One area had steps as long as my femur (a guestimate, obviously, I do not know much about anatomy). We only spent about an hour there, but really, that was enough. It has some amazing views from the higher sections, and it feels great to be surrounded by history, but after about an hour, it is still a big wall. There is an escalator down from one point, and we all decided that a slide would have been way cooler. Only 4 of us really tried to tackle as much of the wall as possible, the others sort of dawdled along. We did get involved in a race with a Chinese man at one point, but that quickly ended.
After that, we headed back to the hotel, had dinner, and after some exciting Chinese television, we went to bed. We had to again get up the next day at 7, so we could make our way back to Hohhot. The ride back only took 7 hours, largely in part to our drivers leaden foot. All in all, the trip was 2 days traveling and one of sightseeing, but we got to do so many cool things on that one day that it was all worth it!
