the end has come

There was only one more thing to be done... see the Great Wall. And that was yesterday. We hiked an untouristed 30 tower, 10 km section from Jinshanling to Simitai. It was only 10 km, but it was 90% stairs (tall stairs) and 90% uphill (where was the down??) and it was in the heat of the day. I walked with Marci from Vancouver.

One moment I'm glad to be leaving for the comforts of the homeland, the next I am sad to be leaving China so soon. There's so much more I want to do. If there's a next time, I'd study the language here for a few weeks before I'd set off traveling - I want to talk, find out what's really happening here, and of course, have better luck with food.

I won't miss the squalor, the nose-blowing onto the street, the nose routing, the horns, the smoking, the retching sound of the ejection of phlegm, the elbowing, staring, shouting and pushing... the train tables smeared with food and grease, piles of sunflower seeds and pools of unknown liquids on the floor, mothers aiding children with their slit trousers to urinate (on buses, trains, flowerbeds, anywhere), the suffocating heat.

I will miss smiling and saying hello. Sure, the kids who point and giggle (or scream), who mock me with their repeated hallooowww, hallooowww, or those who stare open-mouthed make me a little crazy. But I have spent my days during the last 6 months saying hello - saying hello to break a stare, saying hello to return a hello, and saying hello to get a hello, and seriously, the responses have been the highlight of my traveling.

I think if I try hello-ing at home, I'll be perceived as psycho.

BUT I found a shirt. Everywhere people are wearing bad-English t-shirts. It's sooo tempting to walk up to them, point to their shirt and say boo ming bai. So I've been looking for my own bad-English shirt.

I missed out on one in the Philippines because they didn't have my size. On the t-shirt was written Beauty is a white sin - or maybe it was White beauty is a sin - either way I thought it was a very provocative t-shirt. This is in an area of the world where the store shelves are loaded with creams, lotions, toners, soaps, pills, teas that promise to whiten your skin. And we buy dark, medium, and light self-tanners.

Anyway, I found a little white t-shirt here in Beijing that I thought was appropriately bad-English - your smile make me happy.

Now it's time to move on to other things.