Year of the Dragon

[Click on the pictures for captions and to enlarge them]

Last Wednesday was a holiday, so my new BFF Mariana and I headed for a little-known portion of the Great Wall about three hours out of Beijing via public transportation. We spent a few hours walking on (and climbing) a mostly unrestored portion of the Wall, and had a picnic on top of a tower in ruins. It was sunny, windy, sandy and wonderful in one of those “my-life-feels-like-a-movie” kind of ways. We had it all to ourselves and only ran into a single group of hikers all day. That’s unusual in China, especially anywhere near the big ol’ Chang Cheng.

Since spring hasn’t really kicked in yet, the pictures, unlike the experience itself, were a bit underwhelming, so I decided to play with some filters. I normally leave my photos pretty much untouched, except for a little contrast. I’m not sure how I feel about these, as they look a bit Instagrammey (yes, I just made that into an adjective).

What do you think? Do you like the more natural pictures, or should I keep playing with filters? Let me know in the comments or write me directly, I actually really would love some feedback (and to know that people are still occasionally reading this). 

Note: this thing will only let me give the pics tiny captions. Please pay attention to the sixth photo, where you can see that only one half of the Wall is restored. The half facing the village and the main road, of course. Picture perfect!