Beijing (Day 2)

May 27th

GREAT WALL OF CHINA DAY!

We are so excited to get to see and walk on the Great Wall of China. We were up and out early, excited and ready to go! We all hopped on the bus ready to go.About 30 or 45 minutes into our drive the bus stopped at a Jade Palace. One cool thing that we learned at the Jade Palace is that there were jade rings on all of the Olympic medals in 2008. That was a really neat thing they did to make it special for China.

Our next stop ended up being at a Copper Vase place. It was another stop that was interesting to see and learn but I could have done without. It is truly amazing the amount of time and effort it goes into making those vases. They were pretty but just not our style. This is the same place that we had lunch. It was your typical tourist Chinese food. Wasn’t bad, wasn’t great. They shuffled tour guide after tour guide in and out of the big banquet hall. We did get to try some of the Chinese vodka. They give it to you in a tiny, tiny “shot glass”. It looked like a thimble but that was more than enough. I think if you drink more than that at a time, you might go blind.

Finally it was time to go to the Sacred Way. The Sacred Way is the walkway to the Ming Tomb where 13 Ming Dynasty Emperors are buried. The walkway is lined with statues of guardian animals and officials. There are 4 of each, two on each side of the walkway, one set standing in a position of ready and the other set in a rest position. We didn’t get have the time to go into the tombs but we were able to walk the 7 kilometers down the Sacred Way and see all of the statues. I found one in particular that I loved. I named him, Bubbie. It was so much fun running from statue to statue taking silly pictures. It is pretty amazing what measures are taken to protect people in the afterlife.

Bubbie

Our time at the Sacred Way felt short but our next stop was the Great Wall of China so we were all very excited to get back on the bus and head north. It wasn’t long before we could see the Wall from the window. It was pretty surreal and exciting to see it just stretch as far as the eye could see. Finally we got to the area that we were going to stop and explore the Wall called the Ba Da Ling. We could not get on the Wall fast enough. Gary got us our tickets, gave us a little bit of information and a time for us to meet him and we were off, running, literally. I felt like a little kid running around on the Great Wall acting silly. One direction was a little more strenuous and therefore less traveled so we headed that way. It was a steep climb but definitely worth it. We went as far as they would technically let you go on that part of the Wall. (Not all of it is in the best condition so they try and advise people from continuing on.) We spent our time making silly little videos, taking pictures of us “falling” off the Wall, jumping on the Wall, pictures of just the Wall and us with the Wall. We couldn’t get enough of it. It was truly an experience that is still difficult to wrap my head around. I continued to try and take time on the Wall to sit and let it sink in that I am on the Great Wall of China. I still don’t think it has sunk in.

I think we could have stayed on the Wall for days just walking, laughing and taking pictures that just don’t begin to capture what we were seeing but our 2 hours on the Wall flew by and before we knew it we were back on the bus headed to the hotel.

Once we got back to the hotel, we joined up with Dave & Gina to head out for dinner and adventure. Gary was heading home for the night and taking the public bus to the subway to his house. So we tagged along. Steve, Anita & Miranda all joined too. We all walked to the bus stop and waited for the double decker bus 7. There public transportation system is great and runs like clockwork. There is no screwing around. When the bus got there you had to immediately jump on or you get left. The bus is PACKED! Standing room only. Tim and Steve are so tall that they have to bend over to stand in the bus. Gary was great with helping us pay our bus fare and get our tickets while we were sitting in traffic. We got plenty of stares as we were the only foreigners on the bus. After about 20ish minutes, we were at the subway stop. So we all hopped off and headed underground. The subway system is super nice. They have a security check where you have to but your bags through the X-ray machine and everything. Everything in the subway was in Chinese and in English. I felt so spoiled. It was fairly easy to figure everything out. However, we did learn the hard way that the machines don’t take 1 yuan bills only coins. Once we got into the subway, we all went our separate ways. Tim, Dave, Gina, Jed and I headed one way, Gary headed home and Steve, Anita & Miranda went a different direction.

The five of us were on a shopping mission. We headed to the Silk Street Market. We had no idea what we would find and boy were we amazed! It was 5 stories of crazy bargain shopping. You had to haggle for everything and Jed and I were terrible at it. Tim & Dave on the other hand, LOVED it and excelled at it. By the time they closed, we had:

-        -  Only made it to 3 floors

-        -  Watched a lady put a flame up to a Chanel bag to show it was not flammable

-        -  Saw kids in baby chaps

-        -  Yelled at and thrown out of 2 shops cause we were too low on our price

-        -   Lady grabbed Gina’s wrist and would not let her go

All of us walked away with souvenirs for friends or something for themselves and some amazing stories and memories. By the time the Silk Market closed, we were ready to find dinner. We were really close to a place in the Lonely Planet book so we decided that would be perfect. We wondered up and down different streets for a while trying to find it with no luck. Finally we asked a rickshaw driver he knew where it was. Of course he did and for $0.65 a person they were take us there on the rickshaws. How do you pass up a deal like that! So the 5 of us hopped on two different rickshaws and off we went. It was a lot of fun. We were super close to the restaurant so it was a short ride and I think they even took us the long way to get there. We had actually walked past the restaurant when we were trying to find it. 

The restaurant was great! Because it was so late there were not a ton of people in there. When they gave us the one menu we immediately had to laugh and we took lots of pictures. The menu was at least 6 feet tall! It was crazy! It took us a while to just go through it all. Thankfully the book had recommendations on what to eat.  Dinner was great and it was so much fun to be out exploring.

After dinner it was time to head back. The buses had stopped running so our options were subway then get a cab or walk or just get a cab from where we were. We had ridden on a bus, the subway and a rickshaw tonight so a cab seems like the perfect answer. So we hailed a cab for the 5 of us. The cabbie flipped out when all 5 of us got into the cab so Tim, Jed and I jumped out and off Gina and Dave when. Since our track record was not so great with getting cabs in Beijing we decided to just go back to the subway. We ran into a few little hiccups trying to get back to the hotel.

-          - Couldn’t find the subway station (did find a hotel where we finally asked)

-          - Because the buses were not running we were not sure which stop to get off and walk from

-          - Ended up walking about 3 miles back from the subway station back to the hotel (did the math backwards in converting km to miles)

It ended up to be a pretty funny adventure back full of a comedy of errors but there were a ton of locals out eating dinner and hanging out. We definitely had the opportunity to see what the locals do in the evening and how they spend their time. 

We made it back to the hotel at 12:06am. A completely successful evening. Tomorrow we leave for Xi’an. There is still so much I want to see and do in Beijing but I can’t wait to see what Xi’an has to offer us.