I had the pleasure of meeting this fine fellow on the way up to the Great Wall. He was slanging tamarinds, and I bought some.
Notice his pimped out chair. Old school. --
On the other end of the old vs. new school spectrum, this picture was taken at this hot pot restaurant on Gui Jie* ("Ghost Street") around 3am on a Tuesday night (after the Talib Kweli concert). If you look closely, you can see a balladeer, jamming on the acoustic geeeetar. Apparently there is a crew of these dudes who make the rounds at all these late night restaurants and charge about 2-3 USD to sing some songs while you eat. This dude was the 4th guy we saw during our meal. Evidently the Chinese young folks like to get serenaded while they dip thin slices of lamb and beef into a delicious boiling broth.
[*Gui Jie was the first street in Beijing where restaurants began opening up--after Deng Xiaoping decreed that: "To get rich is glorious." It's called "Ghost Street" because the restaurants open late and don't close until about 5:46 in the mornin' crack dawn'n now I'm yawn'n...] --
So back in China and life has returned to straight random. One night I'm hanging out with Talib Kweli and his entourage at his recent performance in Beijing.
-- The next night I'm camping on the Great Wall of China. Amazing. (Real talk!)
Some friends organized the trip and I...tagged along. One of the guys had just bought a car, so I took my first road trip in China. After about a 2 hour drive from Beijing, we arrived to the base of the mountain. Ahead of us: about a 3 hour hike up to the Great Wall.
Luckily I only had a small backpack, which I had borrowed from my friend. The other 3 had these serious hiking backpacks full of tents, sleeping bags, water, food, Famous Grouse, etc. It was a completely different experience than my previous and only other trip to the Great Wall.
[In 2000 my family went to this wack (real talk) part of the Great Wall called Badaling. It was like a zoo with almost as many street vendors as tourists.]
This time, we saw only a handful of other people hiking. Once we reached the top of the mountain, we found the wall to be raw and relatively untouched.
"Relatively untouched." There was still a lady (sitting) who had hiked up the mountain to sell bottled water and tea in that cooler. Also peep my boy rocking the "unbuttoned" look. --
Anyway, from this point we still had to traverse up the wall itself to one of the sentinel towers to encamp. This part of the hike was actually the hardest and a bit scary (real talk). I could not help but marvel at how the Chinese had built this thing. The incline at certain parts turned almost vertical. How did they get all the bricks up the mountain??! The wall was literally crumbling under our feet as we climbed.
--
We did make it to the tower right before dark fell, and as my friend Steve said, "It was glorious."
We set up our tents and busted out the Famous Grouse. --
The best part of the trip came when we were sitting on the roof of the sentinel tower in the middle of the night. This fog had rolled over the valley below and all you could see were the surrounding mountain peaks and the tops of the hills below. The sky was as clear as I've ever seen in China and the moon illuminated the landscape so that the hilltops jutting through the fog below looked like islands in a sea of mist.
I felt like I was inside a Chinese painting.
--
-- You can't help but feel the presence of all the history permeating China, and the way the country is modernizing so rapidly makes it such a fascinating place.
-- Apologies for the blog hiatus. I recently got back to China after almost a month back in the USandA. USandA is a pretty nice place.
Here are some things I already miss (in no particular order):
Clean air. (Picture taken near the Faculty Club on the UC-Berkeley campus) --
Chillin' at beach houses. (Picture taken at Stinson Beach...congrats to Dan and Jenny again!) --
Chillin' on rooftops. (Picture taken at the PONA in Chi-town) --
Booty width discrepancies. (Picture taken in downtown Chicago) --
Hanging out with OG's in the LES at parties with free malt liquor. Word to my man Roscoe. (Pictures taken at the Reed Space in NYC) --
New York City. My first time back since moving away. I must say it was a bit weird not having my own place to stay. Big big ups to James, Paul W., Rob, and Jiminie for making me feel still at home. (Picture taken outside of Frank in the East Village in NYC) --
Diversity. (Picture taken in 42nd St subway station in NYC) --
Guitar Hero!!! (Picture taken at Casa Andria, Christina, & Justin in SF) --
DJing in NYC with my homeskillets. Word to Moe Choi, my bro (Derek), and Adrien. (Picture taken at Double Happiness...RIP) --
Fully stocked refrigerators with Lychee POM juice. Word to Paul and Mona. Bratwurst modeled by Notorious VIV. (Picture taken at the PONA) --
MEXICAN FOOD!!! Word to Ms. Marie for facilitating maximals last-minute burrito and taco nourishment before the 12 hour flight back to China. (Picture taken on the Mission in SF)
-- For reals I miss most of all my homeskillets and homeskillettes in Chicago, DC, New York, SF, and Virginia.
Real talk.
Speaking of which...new favorite video?
"...I wish you woooooouuuuuld burn my motherfocking clothes!!!!"
