Beach Weekend!

My adventures continue as I headed to the beach over the weekend! I started off by taking a very Chinese slow train out to the sea. The train was very interesting. Contained squat toilet restrooms and people carrying a huge kettle of steaming hot water to give to passenger for their tea and cup of noodles. The town we were headed to was only two and half hours east of Beijing. It is called Beidaihe.

After arriving at the train station, all these people starting yelling at us asking us if we wanted a taxi. There were people holding signs with pictures of their hotel and restaurant signs. Easily we got a taxi that took us to our hotel. Our hotel was very Chinese. It only cost us 116 rmb a night (22 usd). The room was very dusty and dirty. We found random nuts on the ground. The shower head was literally over the toilet and we couldn't even imagine putting paper in the toilet! We had to wear our shoes the entire time we were in the room. But for three girls sharing a room it was fine, we were hardly in it!

Beidaihe is a beach resort town. It resembled any other beach town that I have been to. One of the main expectation to this was it was a beach resort town catered to the Russians and Chinese. There were Russian signs everywhere, and all the Chinese people tried speaking Russian to us! They got angry at us when we started speaking Chinese to them. Eventually we told them we were American and that seemed to do the trick! I think we were the only Americans in the town.

The beach was beautiful! Right before going, I had horror stories of green water and trashy sand. The beach was the complete opposite of it! The skies were blue and the water was gorgeous! I loved being by the ocean!

 We were bordering the Bohai Sea.

 It was a great day for a swim! The water was so calm! There were barely any waves!

 While we were in Beidaihe was decided to travel north to Shanguian to see Old Dragon's Head. That is where the Great Wall meets the sea! This was my fourth time the wall and I was just as excited to see it the fourth time as I was the first time! Where the wall meets the sea was very impressive. The literally built the wall up into the edge of the sea. This part of the wall was built in a military complex. It had at one time been a castle. It is the only part of the Great Wall that was built in a palace. Pretty awesome.

This section of the wall goes into the Bohai Sea (which feeds into the Pacific Ocean)

 I will be going back to Beidaihe in the future! It was a relaxing weekend away from a big bustling city!