9/21

9/21 5:00am CST

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3rd Uncle bellows into our shared hostel that we should try to get up and go hiking. It is dark and drizzling, and the power is out so there's no hot water. My mom yells at him that we should get up later and go back to sleep. I go back out and count sheep. The bed is a nice soft one, which lets me sleep on my stomach. At other places where the bed is very hard, I haven't been able to use that mode of sleep because my quad muscles are so thick that they raise my knees off the surface of the bed. So my leg is somewhat suspended in the air by the muscle and thus there's a lot of pressure going on. A couple hours later, 3rd Uncle says they've fired up the generator so we should all get into the showers. I'm of course the last in line, so the hot water runs out on me, and I'm freezing as I put my clothes on. Foolishly, I opt for a jacket and shorts, hoping that the sun will come out to match my anticipated temperature. Everyone tries to change my mind at breakfast but I rebuff them.

We drive over to the hiking point and get started. Fortunately, though it is still windy and cold, the rain has stopped. The first thing we have to do is cross a wooden suspension bridge. About 50 meters long and 10 meters over a very shallow river. It sways a bit and my hands are very cold, but I manage to get some cool panoramas. The end of the bridge has a pear tree that has dropped lots of pears. I lob a few into the water. The first half of the hike is all on granite steps and pretty easy. 12 zodiac animal statues line the early part of the walk. Someone has cleverly put a pear into the open mouth of the dragon statue. In Chinese mythology, a dragon carefully holds a pearl in its mouth. We all hike at different paces and I try to press mine, just to stay warm in the chilly wind. I can't seem to catch my breath and I'm tiring out faster than I should, whether or not I've been shirking exercise. Something is up, but I don't complain about it. After some more grueling hiking up steps, we reach the end of the easy phase. There's a very big golden Buddha statue on the mountain side. It was built in the last 15 years or so as a tourist attraction. Not that well made, but a nice rest break. Now we had to muster up courage for hiking to the Great Wall. 3rd Uncle tried to dissuade us from going in this weather as the path would be slippery, but we'd gotten this far, so we all decided to go for it. The hike was a lot slower and all on dirt and rocks. I struggled with the temperature, but managed to keep going. At last we got to the bricks making up the Great Wall. This stretch of the wall is not really in a heavy tourism area, so it has never been restored. All the bricks and mortar are original. It's about the same size as the stretches I've seen elsewhere. The wall tries to move along the ridges from mountaintop to mountaintop. The enemy would not only have to ascend really craggy slopes but also mount the wall to get into China. The China side of the wall has access stairs so I climb up those and land on the wall itself. As always, it's cool to see the Great Wall meandering from peak to peak, a testament to the great efforts of the people. This section is really worn down, which is good if only for seeing how old it is. We walk around a bit and duck into one of the guard tower sections. The wind still finds me, and I continue to chill down. After getting our fill of pictures, we start the descent. It's a bit slippery in places but overall very easy. We cross back over the foot bridge and head back to the retreat.

We stop off at a Buddhist temple to check it out. At this point, I'm feeling really weird and am zoned out of the whole tour that the monk delivers. I'm just thinking about getting some sleep or something.
Lunch was similarly rustic and good, but I'm really feeling beat down. The cat is back for scraps, and I pet it and give it a lot. It has really soft fur and doesn't feel bony. I'm guessing it gets a good amount of meat in its diet. I certainly give it a fair share. I excuse myself from the table to put on some pants, but just end up flopping onto my bed in the hostel. Don't really get any sleep, but the rest helps. I am in and out on the car ride back to Guye. I head straight to bed there, too. My mom comes in to check up on me and piles some blankets on. My parents go outside to fetch some food for dinner. They get chestnuts, dates, moon cakes, crabs, and mantis shrimp. We are planning to eat with Wang Yupo's family. He turns out to be stuck at work. He even has to work tomorrow, on Mid-Autumn Festival, which is rather unheard of. I register a low-grade fever on the thermometer and keep napping. Eventually, I manage to get up. The power is back on, so I guess the others didn't have to eat dinner by candlelight. I very agonizingly slowly eat some dinner, but decide to take it easy and go back to napping. The fever has broken somewhat but my stomach isn't in the best of moods.

A note on utilities:
As you've seen during the trip, we've run into some many instances of bad utility service. I'm not exactly sure how it works out, but the power and water companies basically do whatever the hell they want and cut off your utilities without notice. I think they do it to address their grid consumption needs, but it is really really inconvenient. At times the electricity will be out for hours at a time to the whole neighborhood. The company will usually turn it back on before dark. At other times, water won't run and you'll have to use whatever you happen to have sitting around. This is really inconvenient for the already delicate bathroom situation.