Golden Week and Camping at the Great Wall

 After only being out of quarantine for a month, we had the opportunity to camp at the Great Wall!  Our sponsor family and new friends, the Christensens, organized it to be at the beginning of "Golden Week," a week that includes National Day when China celebrates the establishment of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, and also the Autumnal solstice.  This is when the moon is believed to be at its brightest and fullest size.  The Mid-Autumn festival or Moon Festival is the 2nd most important holiday after Chinese New Year.  It's a 3,000 year old holiday that was first celebrated by China's emperors when they would worship the moon in hopes for a successful harvest.  

A few weeks before the holiday, we received two boxes of fruit from the front desk of our apartment complex as a gift for Moon Festival.  One was full of large Chinese pears and the other was full of large pomegranates. I've learned that the fruit is a symbol of bounty, and eating a pear is a symbol of family reunion and that the family won't be apart.  During his language instruction at FSI last fall, Briant also learned that during Moon Festival, we are reminded that no matter how far apart we are from our loved ones, we are always sleeping under the same moon.  I love that.

For Golden Week, everyone finished work and school on September 30, so we headed out for camping the next day.  Without any of our shipment here, we had to borrow a tent and sleeping bags.  Briant and I went to Decathlon (like an REI), and got some campfire chairs, light blankets, and small backpacks, so at least we had a few things of our own.  ;)  Jana and Randy Ewing hired a driver with us to take us to the wall and then come back and pick us up two days later.  She was really sweet and we communicated a lot through smiles and gestures (except Briant could have some conversations with her).  The 2.5 hour drive took us 4 hours to get there because of traffic.  For some reason we took the longest to get there since everyone else took about 2.5-3 hours.  Not sure why, but we made it and we enjoyed some gluten free peanut butter cookies on the way that Jana made for me.  So sweet and thoughtful!Our camp group ended up being about 70 people, 13-15 families.  We camped at an area called Gubei Kou.We had a large group--I think there were about 70 people, 13-15 families.  About half were from our branch at church and half were from the embassy.  Our first afternoon there after setting up our tent, Amber and I ran up to a section of the Great Wall that was right next to our campsite.  Crazy that it was right there!  It was a very unrestored section, but still so cool!  Bri was exploring on his own but caught up with us and we grabbed some great pics together.

We ran into Thomas and Duncan hiking up as we were coming down.  Apparently we just ignore the sign that says no public access???

The first night for dinner, we ate Chuar (lamb on skewers sprinkled in cumin, salt, and cayenne pepper) and had a potluck that a small group of us contributed to--the Stevens, Ewings, Christensens, and us.  Everyone else did their own thing.

  We sat around the campfire trying to stay warm as we visited and the kids played.  Jana passed out light up earrings to those of us that had our ears pierced.  Felt fun like we were at Disneyland or something.The kids LOVED running around the campsite playing games with the other kids and sitting around the campfire playing Mafia and Blink Murder.  There was also a climbing wall that Travis Sevy brought ropes and cables for so the kids were able to do that as well.  We had a great mix of young kids and teens.  All three of the kids had someone or many "someones" to pal around with.

  

I was so grateful for the Western toilet in the bathroom that I guess is somewhat of a new feature at this campsite.  It was especially nice not to worry about that in the middle of the night, even though we always had to make sure to carry toilet paper with us.  We also had a restaurant around the corner from where we were camping too, which we utilized for almost every meal.  We didn't want to deal with buying a camp stove and keeping food cold in coolers we don't have yet.  So we kept it easy.  After a very sleepless night due to the very cold weather and not enough coverage with our sleeping gear, we ate breakfast at the restaurant and then headed up to hike the wall.  Here's Bri, so cute after "waking up" from the sleepless night and after getting dressed with his new hat.

There was a fun ropes course from the parking lot to the beginning of the hike.  I was hoping the kids weren't wearing themselves out before we even started the hike, but apparently they didn't because they were fast moving on the hike!The kids ran ahead and bounced around the wall with friends until the public access stopped and then they sat down and rested.  The adults finally caught up to them and we got some pics together.

The views were breathtaking and we couldn't have had better weather or a more perfectly clear, blue sky day!  Bri and I kept saying, "Can you believe we're on the Great Wall of China?!?!" 

 We had no idea what to expect when we planned the trip with going to an unrestored section of the wall, but it was exactly what we wanted!

After the hike that took us 2.5-3 hours, we finished famished and found a restaurant back where we started hiking.  Three families joined together (the Andertons, Christensens, and us) and ordered large amounts and food and we ate happily.  Large open buffet like style with large turn lazy susans in the middle filled with lots of noodles, rice, beef and chicken dishes, along with green beans.  We ended up with so much food that we were able to take left overs back to the camp for dinner later that night.We headed back to camp, played around some more (because of course the kids still had energy!), and then we ate our lunch leftovers for dinner.

  Cute little Paige Sevy was happily pushed around on a hanging rope.

We enjoyed some guitar and singing by Travis Sevy and just hanging out.  

This night around the campfire felt even colder than the previous night, but this time we were more prepared.  Unfortunately Jana E. slipped and fell as we were hiking back down the wall to camp, and hurt her knee pretty bad.  She was going to tough it out, but when Dan and his son were going to head back home to Beijing that night and offered them a ride, she thought it best to go and sleep in her own bed and take care of her knee.  So they gave us their air mattress and two sleeping bags and down blanket that kept us soooo much warmer than we were the night before.  Yay! 

Saturday morning we warmed up around the fire first and then grabbed breakfast at the restaurant. They always served us a preset meal of hard boiled eggs, millet porridge, bread, some sort of vinegar and veggie stuff and warm milk (the Chinese believe that drinking cold drinks is bad for you and will contribute to catching colds).  It was so cheap, something like $10 for the whole family.

Instead of heading to a hiking trail that would take 1.5 hours to hike each way, that would end at a natural pool and waterfall, everyone opted to head home since it was so cold and the water would be even colder.  We said goodbye to the Christensen's wonderful tent and everything we borrowed and packed up.  We are definitely going to get our own 8-10 person tent just like that! 

Time for everyone to start packing up.Our driver picked us up right on time amazingly at 10:00am, and we arrived home after about 2.5 hours.  It was so wonderful to take a shower and sleep in our beds that night, but we missed being with our friends like we had been for the past few days.  Rhea even cried and asked to go back because she had enjoyed our "slumber party" in the tent as a family and being so free to socialize with friends.  We hope to make it a yearly tradition!