Day 2 - The Great Wall
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| On the second day we visited the Great Wall. You can climb the wall only at certain locations, and I imagine they were all like ours - super touristy. Lots and lots of people everywhere. Some of the sections of the wall are also really though to climb, they either have really narrow steps or a very steep incline. This is why you not only get one, but TWO pictures of me resting on a ledge. In the first picture, you can see me mocking a frightened boy as he hangs on to dear life while descending. Higher up, I had heard his mother chiding his tearful ass by saying something like "But we're on the Great Wall!" to which he gave the uncannily obtuse reply of "I'm the Great Wall!!". It was so nonsensical that I could easily imagine myself saying such a thing. |
  
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What suprised me was the number of local merchants on the wall trying to peddle their wares. It was unexpected and proved to be our first experience with bargaining for lower prices. You can see Etienne here being surrounded by no less than FOUR women trying to sell him some shirts. The best thing about walking around with him was that vendors always approached the Gweilo and left me relatively alone. But maybe I just looked poor and/or unfriendly?
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| Lunch was spent at a government run "friendship store" where "prices were unnegotiable but quality was guaranteed". What this means was that the food was some of the worst I had ever eaten and we didn't buy anything cuz it was a huge scam. Also, the fabric where they made the cloisonne really looked just like a sweatshop. We decided to visit the little neighbourhood beside the store where we walked down a dusty path and found people playing pool outdoors, bought 2 really delicious pastries for 9 cents each, and a kilogram bag of sunflower seeds for a quarter. We also drove by the future Disney Land-Beijing. | ||
 
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| Next we visited the Ming Tombs. It was slightly underwhelming, the museum was cool but probably not worth the long bus ride. On top of the main building is an anti-climactic replica of a prayer tablet. What I found fun was the altar where people must have deposited hundreds of dollars in coins and bills. I deposited 50 cents in case it would secure my place in the hall of my fathers. In the second last picture you'll see me modelling my newly acquired "Peak" jacket. I bought it at a shop at the entrance to the great wall because I was SO COLD. She started off with some price, I offered her a lower one and she said that prices were unbargainable. I decided to leave the store and then she said that she would sell it to me at a lower price! Unbelievable! We ended up agreeing on 180 Yuan which is 25$. Reasonable, I thought. It turns out that I could have gotten it for much much less.
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Due to traffic, which was incredibly dense, we arrived at our dinner restaurant very late. This caused our dinner to be rather cold. Physically unable to deal with 2 bad meals in a row, I decided that we should venture out and check out some of modern Beijing. We went to Wang Fu Jing, a modern pedestrian shopping district and quite the tourist attraction as we saw lots of outsiders. There were lots of high end stores and little knick knack shops but we got there quite late and only got a glimpse of what it was like. What we did end up doing was eat off street vendors (something I really wanted to do while in China). The street vendors were surrounded by mothers and their children approaching you for food. A really unpleasant sight. I got deep fried scorpions and 2 sticks of fruit, but really got ripped off on the fruit. The scorpions were fun, it was 3 little scorpions on a stick (as opposed to 1 huge scorpion on a stick, which I doubt I could have eaten) and they give your brain a real buzz. I thought I was either going to be sick or die. I want more! We ended up going to a dumpling shop and ordered 30 dumplings, 2 bottles of beer, and 2 flasks of very terrible hard liquor for under 10$. Transportation costs were very minimal. 50 cents to take the subway (you need your ticket to get OUT of the station!) where a very nice young lady randomly helped us to get where we were going, and about 3$ for a 20 minute cab ride. Eating, drinking and getting around in Beijing is very very cheap.
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