The Great Wall

  Beijing, China
Friday, July 25, 2008

On Friday we went to the Great Wall of China at Mutinayu, which is a site that is less crowded and touristy than some of the others. It lived up to that reputation and it was not crowded at all. Going up the mountain of Mutinayu was amazing, as we had made the fortunate decision to take a cable car up. It was like a sky lift without the skies - and with the Great Wall at the top. The view was incredible, although the pictures may not do it justice as it was a foggy day. When we started walking along the wall we were very grateful that we had made the decision to use the cable car instead of hiking because we found that the top of this wall is deceptively full of stairs. That was the secret weapon to keep out the Mongols - if the wall itself didn't deter them, the heart attacks they got from climbing that thing (in armor mind you) would. It was all worth it though - absolutely stunning.  And one of the highlights was going down the mountain. We sat on these little wooden roller boards that zoomed down a winding metal slide. It was like an amusement park ride through ancient China. Awesome!

The Wall

The rest of the tour (it included a lot of sites around Beijing) was less thrilling. It was the Ming Tombs, the Jade Factory and the Silk factory. Those last two were pretty much places for us to spend money, and I would say that the plan worked pretty well.

At night we met our friend, Yufei, for dinner. She goes to Wash U, but Beijing is her hometown. We went to Houhai park, very close to our hostel. We went into an a la cart food court with a lot of traditional Beijing food, which had a live singer singing traditional Chinese songs. It was delicious and I have gathered by now that Beijingers have a sweet tooth. My kind of town.

After dinner we walked around the park for a bit and saw a large strip of bars. Apparently, this is one of the party streets of Beijing. Yufei explained that the stereotype here is that all people that speak English are big partiers and drink a lot, so there were a lot of people trying to get us to come inside their bar. By the time we got back to our hostel we were soar and exhasted, courtesy of the Great Wall I assume. We slept like babies.