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Published: August 8th 2007
Guest Blogger: MMM (per SF Girl's request)
No trip to China would be complete without a visit to the Great Wall of China. So today we put on our best sneakers and got ready for a trek on the #1 ranked site of the Seven Wonders of the World. Since SF Girl, who I will refer to as CJJ (short for C Jie Jie, which means “big sister”), had already been to the Badaling part of the Great Wall, we decided to join a tour to the Mutianyu section, which supposedly has significantly less tourists and better scenery. For 310 rmb (about US$40), we got a bus ride to/from our hotel to the Great Wall, entry tickets to the Wall, a cable car ride to/from the Wall, an English-speaking guide and of course, a mandatory stop at a government-sponsored Cloisonnes store.
We met our guide, James, at 9:35am at our hotel. James had excellent English, although he really liked to repeat certain words in a funny way which kept making us giggle. We had to pick up 6 other people at other hotels in the area, but since Beijing traffic is horrendous, it took over an hour to do
so. No sweat for us though, CJJ and I had a nice nap while stuck in traffic!
We finally started making our way to Mutianyu. After about an hour in the bus, we stopped at the Cloisonnes store and watched people make vases, plates, etc. We picked up a couple souvenirs and were on our way. As we approached the Great Wall, James said to us, “You all must be very excited right now. This is your big, exciting Beijing moment!” And indeed it was!
We got off the bus and made our way past the souvenir shops and all the people yelling at us, “Lady! Lady! Look-ey here! You want to buy gift?” We got our entry tickets from James and he informed us that we only had 2 hours to spend on the Wall! We had to allocate our time wisely! We got on a cable car that took us to the Wall with 2 girls from Sweden. On the ride we could see the long Wall, snaking along the mountain top - it was amazing. When we reached the top, we went picture-crazy! “Take a picture of me over here!” “And over here!” “Let’s take
one together!” When we finally settled down, we decided to make our way to the left end of the walk-able Mutianyu section, which included a short, but steep climb.
As we were making our way up and down the Wall, two Chinese guys started talking to us. They kept trying to ask us how much money people in America make - we realized that the Chinese have a perception that moving to America will automatically mean becoming rich. And sadly enough, in Chinese standards, that may be true. Their questioning became a bit annoying though, so it motivated us to pick up the pace and race up the hill…until we reached the final steep climb. We both realized we were a little scared of heights so we had to concentrate on not looking back and just getting up the steps. A couple hundred uneven stone steps and a trillion sweat drops later, we finally made it to the top. I looked down at my shirt and it was trenched in sweat…lovely! But there was no need to be embarrassed because CJJ was equally sweaty! An old man was at the top of the Wall awaiting us. He apparently worked
for the Great Wall and he snapped a bunch of pictures for us. We looked down at our watches and realized we only had 20 minutes to get back to the bus to meet James. So, despite our slight fear of heights, we raced down the steps of the Great Wall, snapped a couple last pictures, jumped on the cable car, grabbed a well-deserved ice cream bar and met up with the rest of our tour group. We got on the bus, fell asleep and before we knew it, we were back at our hotel cleaning off all the sweat we had accumulated during the day. Despite the fact that our visit was a bit rushed, the Great Wall truly was a World Wonder and was definitely our “big, exciting Beijing moment!”
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Jen
non-member comment
MMM - you should blog more often. your entry was quite entertaining and
descriptive!