Chine... uhhh?

So for China, I'm just going to paste an email I sent to my dear friend Lillie, because I've told the story way too many times and I don't feel like retyping everything:

Hey dude.

The great wall fucking SUCKED. let me tell you all about your delinquent best friend...

So, the wall itself was awesome. A pretty tiring hike, but one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Cold as fuck, but awesome. Then it became night time and it was time to make camp. We were in a group of 50, so when almost everyone settled in one place, me and four friends decided to keep going because we didn't want to get in any sort of trouble, which generally comes with large groups and alcohol. So we found this kick ass watchtower that had like... a makeshift fire pit. So we gathered some branches and toilet paper and this wood we found on the ground, and we started a fire. I didn't drink because there was only beer and I wanted to be sober (last year someone fell off and busted their head, and I know CPR/first aid so I figured I'd stay clear headed) So after a few hours of just kicking it and chillin, these fucking security officers come and make us put out the fire and start yelling at us in Chinese. Then our tour guide comes and we're like "dude, wtf is going on". APPARENTLY the piece of wood we found on the ground was a relic from the wall that they thought we had torn off (allegedly 600 years old). We explained that we found everything the way it was and that we didn't tear the wall apart, but they wouldn't believe us. So they kicked everyone off the wall, which made a lot of people hate us a little. Then we went to the police station and were interrogated for about 2 fucking hours, and they told us to clean up the wall at sunrise and that we would be fined anywhere from 5,000 YUAN-30,000 YUAN (about $800-$5000), but our tour guides said that if we cried and cleaned and did everything we'd probably get a lesser fine. Oh, and they wouldn't let us call the embassy. So they finally let us go at like 3:30 AM, we have to be on the wall cleaning by 6. Meanwhile it's like 20 degrees outside so none of us sleep at all. At 5:45 we head up and clean up our shit and everyone elses shit, I'm talking picking up pieces of used toilet paper and shards of broken glass. At 8 AM then tell us they're charging us the 30,000 YUAN, which is BULLSHIT. So we go back and they interrogate us for another two hours and we eventually talk them down to 20,000 YUAN, but they make us sign a confession saying that we tore the wood off the wall and created the fire pit ourselves. We just were so fucking exhausted and pissed off at this point, and they wouldn't let the rest of our group go either, so we swallowed our pride and our tour guides paid the fine (we're being billed for it... $665, dude) and we were finally able to leave.







So... yeah. That's mostly how China went. Don't get me wrong, I saw some other cool things and enjoyed my time otherwise... but I did NOT enjoy China.