Surprise Weekend!

I was going to hang out around Beijing last weekend, so on Friday night I got connected to the local cable and watched a bunch of Chinese TV series.  The cable box guy came and installed the setup within 30 min. (wayyyy faster than the Comcast guy).  It works like a Tivo box, which is really nice.  3 hours later at 2AM, I was all in tears from the drama on TV (yeah I'm lame, I know).  I cry very easily when I watch TV and movies.  I even cried watching 127 Hours. 

The next morning I woke up by the ring on my phone.  Hunter and I were going to go hiking on Sunday but then he told me that he couldn't.  I called him and gave him a hard time.  

What else could be more important than getting out of Beijing for a hike?  I said.
Sorry, my friends told me last night that we were going climbing instead. We will be gone for the whole weekend, he said. 
What?  That's even better!  Why didn't you tell me?  You don't remember that I'm a climber?  I asked.
Oh, that's right, I forgot.  Like I said, it was totally unexpected and I only found out at midnight, he replied sheepishly.

After figuring out that I could meet up with them by bus and a cab ride, I packed my climbing gear and ran out the door.  I was so excited about the prospect of climbing outside that I didn't really care how cold it was, and how long it might take me to get there.  The trip looked something like this (almost faster than going to the climbing gym in Beijing):

Subway (30 min) -----> Waiting in line for the bus (30 min) ----> Express Bus ( 1 hour) -----> Taxi (45 min)

The taxi guy stared at me when I sat on the passenger seat and fastened the seat belt.

You don't have to fasten your seat belt, he said.
I said, Thank you, but I think I'm ok with the seat belt fastened.

Going through the mountain roads at 80 km/hr, I was rather glad that I made that decision.  The driver takes up both lanes as he makes the turns, honking as a warning to make sure that the other side won't come colliding.  Exactly the same experience that I had in Sichuan a couple years back.  It was pretty scenic despite of the horrific driving.  I even saw some remnants of the great wall along the way.

After about 45 minutes, the taxi driver dropped me off by the river called Baihe (White River) in a small village.  I saw a few people climbing across the river, and the adrenaline seems to rush in a bit just looking at the rock faces. 

The taxi

I found Hunter and his friends by the river in one of the crags.  There was a guy name Mantou (steamed bun) and his girlfriend Gaga.  And another guy name Daxue (big snow).  I don't know why everyone has nicknames here, but that's all I know about them.

Mantou leading

Mantou is clearly the strongest climber of the group, and he lead most of the climbs that we did.  His girlfriend Gaga is also an amazing climber, and they have only been climbing since last summer!  Sigh - I need to work on my techniques.  Big Snow is really out of shape and currently a bit overweight, so he really couldn't get up much.  It was Hunter's first time climbing outside, and really his first week climbing, but he weighs only about 10 lbs more than me and climbed up most of the 5.10 climbs relatively quickly.  We all agreed that he's got talent, and that he should really join us and be as obsessed as we are into climbing.  Ha!

The rocks are relatively slick and I needed a lot of adjusting.  Although we were all freezing our asses off in the cold, it was a great first weekend out climbing.  I'm super psyched to have met these people, and I hope I will be able to make time to come out every weekend with them to Baihe!