Beijing Day 2 (Saturday)

I decided last night after a great day in the Forbidden City that I had to keep the tourist energy up so I booked to go on the hostels 'Secret Wall' tour.
This meant the end of my first 'Days without Shoes' count. It had been 11 days since I put a pair of shoes and socks on, but today sturdy footware was required.
I left the Hostel at 7.30am in a mini bus with 8 other gwai lo's. It was interesting to see Beijing Streets but also pretty scary as it seems line markings and traffic lights don't mean much some times..
After a couple of hours we picked up a local guide from a village and not far from there we got out and began to walk up the side of a mountain. It was pretty tough going and a couple of young guys had to stop for extra rests (too much beer last night?).
After 40 mins or so we made it onto the wall. This was the wall as it is now - without being 'done up' for tourists. We had driven past some of these modified sections on the way and the amount of tourists we could see was reminding me of Central Beijing yesterday.
It was great to have just our group (and maybe 5 others) walking along this section of the wall. Zheng yesterday was calling the wall 'the longest graveyard in the world' because of the amount of people who died building it, and seeing the landscape today I can see how hard it would have been - even walking parts of the wall was really hard because of the steepness and undulations in the landscape. The landscapes and mountains looked great.
After walking for a couple of hours we made our way down into a village and had some regional food for lunch. It was pretty tasty - nice and spicy how I like it and mostly vegetables. It was great to eat some local food without having to try to read a Chinese menu!