Going up the mountains

Together with Mats (www.mistermats.blogspot.com) and Roger, I went up to the mountains north west of Beijing, Mats has rented a car for a month and he's looking for a place to rent (and renovate) a summer cottage. He's been to this village before but now we looked at other objects. Unfortunately this was the rainiest day in Beijing for years. Roger who lived here for five years has never experienced this before. We thought is would be better weather in the mountains, but no... Sometimes even the road was half blocked because of rocks falling from the cliff walls next to the road.
We started at Starbuck at The Place. Next to us a very old Chinese man started to talk to us. He spoke English and told us that he lives in California nowadays and that he's 96 years old! He asked were we were from and remembered that the Swedish king visited China not so long ago. He was really cool and cute. When he started to talk to us his wife and daughter was away, so when they came back they got embarrassed and led him away.
We picked up some things in Rogers apartment. At the living room table he has this collection... (Help!) In front of the table he has a super equipment with iTV, Sony Bravia flat screen TV, Playstation 3 and a stereo and probably something more...

The village is in a small valley in the mountains. It has one shop and one restaurant. Except that, nothing else but domestic houses (oh! of course a out door gym! This was actually pretty new)
The Great Wall passes through the village. Bet here it's only like an ordinary big stone wall. A beautiful place!
On the top of a hill just outside the village this dude was sitting in the rain. It really felt like one of those martial art movies you see. The old master (with almost no teeth) sits on a hill and meditates, hehe... Unfortunately the photo is out of focus.I don't know if you can see the angle of this road. But it was really steep, from 800m to 200m above the sea in a few kilometers.
It was wonderful to drive the almost empty roads outside Beijing. Then... We got into the city and the traffic jams started. Terrible! Luckily we had an iPod with some podcastings Roger had downloaded - Filosofiska Rummer P1, MacBreak (about the upcoming iPhone release), Sommar i P1. Wonderful! I really missed Swedish radio. I will download more for myself.