"Ya know . . . this is a Great Wall . . . "

Written on November 7, 2006

Contrary to popular knowledge, or though my email would have me believe is popular knowledge, I am not dead. Rather, I have been experiencing technical difficulties with computer access outside of work. It all started with my apple power sending out a bright little display of sparks and then sizzling slowly until the indicator light that tells when the computer is being charged went dead. I debated long and hard about whether I should just use the company computer or whether I should buy a replacement charger since I knew that the apple sales people would gouge the crap out of me if I tried to buy one here in China. After getting a sore back lugging home the late 1990s size laptop in my man-bag once or twice, I broke down and decided to buy the charger. And it only cost me $120 . . . a 75% markup from US prices . . . freaking shipping costs . . .

So as of Saturday, I had a charged home computer. And since I would also have a charged home computer on Sunday, I decided to relax Saturday afternoon knowing that I could tell you all how I was doing on Sunday. Boy was that a miscalculation. Saturday night I decided to take a little trip out to the bars (now I know what you’re thinking . . . he must have drank too much and gotten a massive hangover . . . but just you wait and see) and, realizing that I had work to do on Sunday and that I really, really wanted to let you all know how I was doing via a blog post, I decided to take it easy on the drinking. After a measly three beers in two hours at the bar, I packed it up and headed home at the socially unacceptable time of 12:30 am. For those of you still on Madison Standard Drinking Time, that would be 1.5 hours before bar time. In Beijing, where there is no bar time, it’s just plain pathetic. But I was feeling very prudent. And what did I get for all of my forethought and responsibility? YES! A migraine AND a headcold! So Sunday did not prove to be the productive day of work and blogging that I had planned. Instead, it was a mixture of me moaning, because for some reason the sound of my own discomfort rather effectively took my mind off the pain in my head, and blowing my nose. So that was fun . . .

On to Monday: I went to work, feeling much better I might add, and had a very productive day. Work finished, on to Chinese class. Chinese class finishes, time to go home and write some blog entries. Get home, start up the computer, and a happy little message greets me: “Cannot find PPPoE server.” Hurray! Now my internet is down, though I haven’t yet paid a bill, so I can take some blame for this problem. Anywhoo, after crying like a little girl for several hours, I decided that I was too depressed to write last night.

Today, however, I am a new man! And here I am to relate to you everything wonderful about China (but you won’t get it until tomorrow, because my internet is still down and I’m writing this in a Word document).

First things first: the Great Wall. Not last Friday, but the Friday before that, I went to the Great Wall. Actually I went to the Great Wall twice in one day, for work research. The first place that I went to was rather dull: a touristy area by a big dam on a run-down portion of the wall. The highlight of the trip to that portion of the wall was the local Chinese yelling when I took off my shirt because my friend Carolyn was trying to take a picture of me and said my jacket was too dark and didn’t stand out enough against the dark hills in the background so I took of my shirt because I’m really pale and, sure enough, you can see me in the picture (even though that sentence was a major run-on, or maybe because it was a major run-on, it was really fun to write . . . I’m in a weird mood . . . ). So yeah, boring part of the wall. If you come to visit me, I will not take you there.

The second part of the wall, though, was really, really cool. There were 10 kilometers or so of completely restored wall. Pictures are the best way to get a feel for it, so go look at them! The only bad part about this portion of the wall was that it was about 4 hours away by car. And this is 4 hours with an insane driver. Let me tell a little story about her . . .

Pardon my French, and cover your kids’ eyes if they’re reading, but this lady had BALLS OF STEEL. I mean, I’ve encountered people who I thought were fearless before, but wow! The car ride up wasn’t so bad. It just involved an average disregard for signs, lanes, etc. that were created to keep drivers and passengers safe. On the way home though, if I had to give a rough estimate for the amount of time that we spent in a lane that did not contain oncoming traffic, I’d guess it was somewhere around 65%. Further breakdown follows: About 30% of the time, we were the party that would have been liable had an accident occurred since we were on the wrong side of the road taking on not only other mid-size sedans, but big freaking gravel trucks that would’ve squashed us like little bugs if they would’ve hit us, in an exhilarating game of chicken. Another 5% of the time some jerk was in our lane trying to cheat death in a similar manner. The remaining 65% of the time, as I mentioned, we were safe.

So that was the Great Wall trip. After that little expedition, I was supposed to watch scary movies with a friend of mine (whose name I should totally give out so that you can send her hate mail on Facebook) since it was Halloween weekend and all, but she backed out so I was forced to watch When A Stranger Calls all by myself. It was a scary movie in theory, but I just couldn’t relate to the main character. I mean I’ve never babysat for such a rich family and my boy troubles just aren’t . . . ok this joke is already going to far.

Sorry folks, all this sarcasm is making me tired. I’m going to go get a massage (I don’t have anything that can compete with the driver-lady for entertainment anyways). Toodles!