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tigsher

My friend, Damon was visiting from the states and he wanted to visit Beijing and go see all the tourist spots. We weren't sure when we would go, but decided today was a good day to go. Bad news was that we partied hard last night, and it was raining pretty hard...lucky for us I got train tickets in the afternoon. We jumped in a taxi, and him being hung over had his head out the whole way to the station throwing up. We got there, and I told him we had 10 minutes till the train left and to suck it up. We rain from the car, argued with the gate lady (she radioed down), one minute after stepping on the train it started. He spent another 15 minutes in the bathroom getting his composure...we crashed in our room. Got to Beijing in the morning, hit the Great Wall, Tian'a men, and Forbidden Palace. Then we caught the 7pm flight back to Shanghai...let me tell you that was a good trip.

3 months ago

titian

My university friend was visiting from Norway. He'd never been to the Great Wall, so we hopped on the night train from Shanghai to Beijing and decided to play it by ear.

When we got to Beijing, we decided we'd try to camp on the wall in one of the towers instead of taking a lame day tour. We didn't even know if it would be possible, but we figured it would be an interesting challenge to give it a try.

It was September last year. Anyhoo. We picked up a blanket at a convenient store in Beijing (cause we hadn't exactly planned ahead), packed some fabulous Great Wall red wine and other convenient store fare and hopped on a public bus to Jinshanling. We arrived at the Wall at sunset, the place was deserted.

Brilliant. The sun went down and a full moon came up. Cheesy. I know. So we hiked along the top of the wall by moonlight for a couple kilometers until we found a tower high up with amazing views for miles and miles. So we sat on a crumbling platform, leaning against our tower and drank a couple bottles of red wine, ate cookies and just sat there in the moonlight for hours loving having the wall to ourselves and our badassness for camping on it. Full moon, mountains, views for miles and just the two of us on a summer on a historical world wonder.

With only one blanket, we didn't sleep much when we finally retired to our tower. Our tower's slab stone floors weren't exactly Crowne Plaza quality, nor conducive to sleeping, but it was one of those ridiculous moments you remember forever--staring up at arched stone ceilings and feeling the breeze through the arched old windows. Cheesy. I know.

Anyway, the next day, we hiked the rest of the way to Simetai along the wall. Between Jinshanling and Simetai, it's like 10 to 12 kilometers or something and it involves lots of steps. Probably need knee surgery now.

In Simetai, we got into big trouble with the police chief, cause we wanted to spend another night on the wall and he wanted us to check into a guesthouse for the night. So he put guards on us and tried to keep us under house arrest.

After hours of being held hostage, we escaped, by waiting out the guards and then sprinting out of town at 11pm at night and running through corn fields and hiked the whole night on the wall, because when we finally reached our old tower, our blanket was gone and it was too cold to try to sleep.

We had to keep moving to keep warm and walked the whole way back between Simatai and Jinshanling and arrived in the morning the next day, then hitch-hiked to the main road in a garbage truck so we could flag down a public bus to get back to Beijing. That sucked. I thought I was going to die of exhaustion. It was like being on the stair-climber for 12 hours. But the whole trip was one of the most random and odd experiences I've ever had. And, the best part is, my barbarian-Great-Wall-invader friend's name was.... Thor.

It's funny. They went to a load of effort to build the Great Wall to keep out foreigners, but now the wall is the biggest foreign tourist attraction in China. That's some fabulous irony. I kinda love it.

3 months ago

cuie

My friends and I decided to go to Moganshan on a whim last summer, and also because we heard about how good a summer getaway it is. What was most amazing about the trip was that we took no less than 5 modes of transport and 4 transfers (taxi-->train-->taxi-->bus-->van) in order to get there! And we actually carried a bottle of South African wine, which was bought in Australia, all the way there to drink!

3 months ago

aussie_gal

A few years ago my boyfriend told me I had 10 minutes to pack a bag.

He then drove me to the airport, where we took a plane to Sydney (Aust) and he took me to see a musical.

The next day over a champagne breakfast he proposed.

Obviously I will never forget that experience - what I thought was originally a spur of the moment getaway was in fact a carefully planned 5 month secret by my now husband. Brilliant!

2 months, 2 weeks ago

russellcj

I grew up in a small farming community in Queensland, Australia. There were only 100 people in the town, and buying anything bigger than toilet paper or toothpaste required a two-hour round trip to the nearest town. As you can imagine, we didn’t go on holidays much and when we did it was a BIG deal.

After weeks of careful planning, my parents decided we would go on a week-long trip to Melbourne - a BIG deal. And we would fly there – a REALLY BIG deal. After dad had milked the cows that night, we waved him goodbye as he set off to buy the tickets.

With growing excitement, Mum and I talked about our upcoming the trip: guessing where we would stay and what we would see. When dad returned 3 hours later, he broke the news: he couldn’t get the tickets to Melbourne. Our family holiday had been cancelled.

Dad knew we would be devastated by the news, so he’d bought us both a little present on his way home to try and cheer us up. Mum opened hers first to find…three tickets to China!!! For two months!! Mine was a video: “Big Bird goes to China”.

Dad’s spur-of-the-moment decision to take us to China (which happened only because mum wasn’t there to stop him!) began my love affair with the country that is now my adopted home. It also gave me the only Chinese phrase I really need to know “Nihao Da Niao” (Hello Bigbird).

2 months, 2 weeks ago

magu

I left because I needed a break from my hometown. I went to Houston, TX and what I did is: leave Houston with some unusual insect bites after being nibbled at by a still unknown bug- during my one night stay at the hostel.

2 months, 2 weeks ago

gct

Okay first of all, I don't recommend people doing this. Secondly, well you may call this a getaway experience in some sorts. In our office, we work in teams. I have to say I have the best team ever, we don't only complement each other in work, but we are actually friends - our relationship go beyond the 8-hour shift. There are 4 of us plus the boss. One lazy afternoon, one bright idea came up - let's just leave the office and watch a movie! The 4 of us of all agreed - it was like high school kids cutting class, what an adventure, the lazy day has now become exciting! Now, we had to plan our 'getaway'. Mind you, we did not want to wait for 6pm, we wanted to get out of the office the soonest. We needed someone who can cover our little crime - or should I say cover our behind. So, we just told the boss we want to cut class, and guess what she also wants to go with us! One by one we left the office. Of course, somebody had to notice - but we didn't mind the boss was with us. We thought we can get away with this. :) We enjoyed the movie and we had dinner after. It was fun!

2 months, 1 week ago

cityweekend

The winner of the contest is russellcj. Congratulations! You've won the one night's stay at the luxurious Crowne Plaza Sanya! Cheers~~

2 months, 1 week ago