Great Wall & Birthday Celebrations
Trip Start
Jun 11, 2008
1
30
349
Trip End
May 14, 2009
Beijing,
China
Monday, June 30, 2008
Firstly, I was up at 2.40am for the Euro 2008 final and I can finally say "Told you so!". From the beginning I tipped Spain to win, but it was more satisfactory watching the Germans lose I think! The German girl who was part of Team B, refused to answer my taunts at 5am! I settled back into bed, just in time for my alarm to go off at 5.10am to wake us for our Great Wall trip.
We took a 2 and a half hour bus journey out of Beijing to xxxx. We wondered about this at first as there are much closer areas, but when we arrived, we realised why - No Tourists! We were actually on this section of the wall on our own for the first two hours!
The sun had stayed in this morning, and to be honest, we were quite glad. We woukd have prefered it a bit clearer, but we still got some great views
Jackie Chan
.We took a 15min walk up to the wall and joined it at turret number 3. We walked the 2KM to turrett number 12 and the back again to number 2. This gives you a good walk as this part of the wall is extremely steep and by going there and back you get a full appreciation of the upward climb and the steep decent. Overall, a steady 4KM walk. You can get a chair lift to turret 8 and back again if you want, but we felt you would be missing loads by doing this, and we were right. The views up to turret 9 were really clear, but then we got into the mist and it was really eerie and spooky, so we got the best of both worlds.
During the walk there were many different types of conversations we had amongst ourselves, including caterpillars, sing songs and foreskins!! We also had a mock Mongolia v China battle right there on the Great Wall!
When we got back to turret 2, we had the opportunity to zip wire across the lake back to ground level. It wasn't the fastest run, but it was a great finish to our morning on the Wall. A boat then took us a bit further down the lake to the car park.
On the way back from the Wall, thhe bus took us via the Olympic Stadium and Olympic Pool building. They aren't open to the public yet, but we got a view of them and the Olympic Village area. The stadiumis supposed to be based on a birds nest and I must say that it does like quite impressive.
We nearly didn't make it at all though. Our bus driver was more mental than normal Chinese drivers. He was overtaking on the inside, overtaking with oncoming vehicles only a few yards away and even though the road was two lanes wide, most of the time the traffic was 4 lanes wide - mental! But the final worry came for us when the driver actually put his OWN seat belt on - we just knew he meant trouble
First Glimpse of the wall
. If he didn't feel safe, what hope was there for the rest of us!?We did survive and finally got dropped off at the "Pearl Market". This sells everything, not just pearls!
I purchased a new rucksack as mine had split on the handle and I was struggling to carry it. I think it had had too much hammer during it's visits to T in the Park. We also bought a boxed mahjong set and a few gifts for people - this is all stuff we are going to try and post home tomorrow.
After this, it was to go back to the hotel to get ready for a big night. It was our tour guides birthday, so we were going to a restaurant then the pub.
The restaurant we went to was the biggest in Asis, our table was on the FIFTH floor!! This is a restaurant that specialises in Peking (Beijing) Duck and it was gorgeous. The food was absolutely magnificent. We had three ducks for our table of 8. The chefs bring the ducks over to the table and cut it all up for you there and then. This was our most expensive meal so far but definitely worth every penny.
We then went off to the "Happy Bar" (yeah I know). We were the only people in there but there was a karaoke stage. No-one went near it for the first round of drinks, but then Adrian got up and did Hotel California.....and the mudslide began!!!
We hit out all the classics, The lion sleeps tonight, always look on the bright side of life, sweet home alabama, time warp....the list is endless. We ended up staying in there until after 2am!! My two definining moments came with a duet with Adrian performing Bohemian Rhapsody and then the ultimate love duet with the Chinese male owner of the bar singing Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender.....scary. He just kept telling me that he wasn't gay....whatever!!
