Day 3 - Tour of the Great Wall and more...

This morning we woke up at crack of dawn. The weather was beautiful; blue skies and pretty clouds. We took showers and got prepared for the huge day ahead of us. Then we had breakfast at the hotel. As we were walking and getting on the bus we were chased by a hotel employee and asked if we knew where a missing robe had went from one of our rooms.

Once we got on the bus to take us to The Great Wall of China our tour guide Sara told us that the wall was 4,000 miles long, took 2,000 years to build, and was glued together with egg whites and sticky rice. Then we arrived at The Wall about an hour out of Beijing. A treacherous uphill climb through the mini souvenir stands ensued, whose owners marked down our names so that they will remember us when the time came to travel back down the same path. The owners of the stands wanted us to buy souvenirs from their shop, so while we were walking up hill, they would stand in our way and try to negotiate the prices. Some people almost didn’t survive! We hadn’t even reached the Great Wall yet, and our group was tired from the climb up the side of the Mountain. At the halfway point of the mountain we saw a camel sitting comfortably in the shade and Mrs. Simonson yelled out “I would have paid anything to ride this camel up here if it was at the bottom of this mountain!”

Continuing on we finally walked about half a mile straight up hill and arrived at the cable car lifts to take us to the Great Wall. Some people believed the lifts were unstable, but in my opinion they were fun besides being just a little too hot. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous. As we ascended, the view grew and we could see everything in the great distance. It was a breath taking and unbelievable experience. We got to the top and had to decide whether to take the difficult path with a stair case like in the movie Kung Fu Panda or easier path of the Great Wall, which started heading down hill. Without a doubt, most people chose the easier path and didn’t finish climbing to the end. It was a huge workout. We will definitely come back stronger individuals. There were many different nationalities of people there and they were fun and interesting to talk to. Many crazy, beautiful, and fun pictures were taken. We then had to leave and went back down on the cable car lifts. While traveling down the mountain, the sea of sales people swarmed around us and insisted they were our “friend” and that they “remember you”. Sometimes we were “special friends and can have special prices”. Let us just compare this shopping experience to quicksand, the more you struggle, the deeper you sink. We escaped, but not without a few cuts and dents in our wallets. Once we got back into the bus we felt exhaustion fall upon us as the opening ceremonies of the Olympics played on the mini television in the bus, which most of us slept through.

After a long drive we stopped at the Cloisonee enamelware shop and saw how simple copper and colored mineral powder was transformed into beautiful pottery. Then after a quick lunch which had a questionable cooked fish on the table appearing to watch your every move, we had some spare time to shop. This is when Savanna and her mother bought a Wa er shao…meaning an ear scoop cleaner thing.

Next, we went to the Ming Tombs, where a picturesque walkway was lined with beautiful willows and grand statues of various animals and officials whom we noticed were all boys… Sara was taking our final group picture of the day when a random tourist stood behind her and made funny faces which made all of us laugh. Later on our way out we found the same tourist and we took pictures with him and he kissed our cheeks because we speculate he was either French or Italian. Sadly this is the point where we had to leave our fantastically amazing tour guide Sara. We have a tour guide for each city we visit and since we were leaving Beijing, we had to leave Sara. After departing from the city we took a long drive that should have lasted only three hours, but since traffic was slow it turned into a four hour drive. The reason for the traffic is that there was a tour bus at the side of the road that was burnt to a crisp which had just been ‘deflamed’. We felt sorry for the people on the tour bus, because they probably lost all of their stuff, and were stranded in the middle of no where. On a good note, our tour bus made it to the next city.
We arrived at Qinhuangdao at 9:00pm and met our new tour guide. However, it was hard to adjust with the memories of Sara still fresh in our minds. Our tour guide’s name for the city of Qinhuangdao is Jeanie. She took us to dinner and after eating we headed to the new hotel by the beach. We are all excited about being close to the beach. Good day! Our day starts at 7am. Bye bye!

A compilation of Stabby’s & Savanna’s experiences.