No trip to China is complete without "at least" one trip to the Great Wall. Unbeknownst to me prior to this trip was that each location in the Great Wall is different.
We tried to go to an area called Huanghua where that was an area of the wall that wasn't "restored". It was supposed to be non-touristy.
The process involved waking up in the early morning to catch the one bus out there each day (which we learned wasn't actually true). But the bus was 11 RMB ($1.375) each to a place called Hairou. From there, we needed to hire a minibus to the Wall.
We end up reaching Hairou after only a little trouble (around an hour, I think). But once getting off the bus in the middle of the highway, we couldn't find anything besides these tiny minibus (yes, the word tiny is needed before minibus). So Genny started talking to them, but they said that Huanghua was under construction. So they'd take us to a different part of the wall for only 90 RMB. At this point, we took their ofter because both we and they knew there was no choice.
But we got there. It was beautiful, even though it wasn't a "Blue Sky Day" and well worth the trek.
On the way back from Hairou to Beijing we had "craaazy minibus driver" and his passenger hawker. They didn't stop for anything including lack of road, red lights, or people. We passed other minibuses. He'd make NYC taxi drivers sweat :)
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