I made it to the Mutianyu Great Wall today!!! Mutianyu is about 3km long and is not as heavily restored as the more popular Badaling Great Wall. I got up bright and early to meet Cory and our driver at 8am to start our day. The drive to Mutianyu took about 1.5 hrs and it rained on the way there. Luckily it stopped raining after we bought our tickets, but we found out that because of the rain...the toboggan ride was closed. I was SOOOOOOO disappointed....that was the biggest part of why I wanted to go to this particular section...I wanted to be able to slide down the mountain on the sled. I'm still disappointed right now as I am typing this! :(
The weather was not in our favor. We took the cable car up to a section of the wall and started to climb up. The view wasn't very good...there was too much fog and mist that you couldn't see out very far. The further we climbed, the more fog we encountered...by the time we made it up to what we thought was the highest point...you could barely see the rest of the wall. Despite the fog and mist, the wall was very impressive. Just imagine how much work went into building the wall and the time it took!!! It is estimated that about 2-3 million people died while building the wall.
We spent about 2 hours hiking on the top of the wall and headed back down, To get back to the parking area where our driver was, we had to pass by a market area of people selling souvenirs. These people are ridiculous...I thought Yashou Market and Pearl Market was bad in terms of the starting prices offered for souvenirs...but it was even worst here! Items would start somewhere in the 200s and end up at around 10-20 by the time we were done bargaining. Most of the people are very aggressive and would try to pull you in to their shops. It was crazy!!! The only fun part about passing through the market was a camel ride...though the camel wouldn't get up when I got on him...he was sick...or maybe I was just too heavy with all my weight I put on??!?! :)
We got back to the hotel around 3:30pm and Helen was waiting for us at the hotel. After introductions, Cory went to get a massage while Helen and I went to the supermarket. The rain was pouring outside!!!! The streets were flooded and our shoes were completely wet since there were just puddles of water everywhere. We were completely soaked by the time we got to the market even though I had my little umbrella...but it was alot of fun being out in the rain! :) It felt like being a kid again playing in the rain....
After we got back to the hotel, we got cleaned up, went out to dinner (the place we went to was kinda like Chinese fast food. We each ordered some meatball dish with rice...it wasn't bad considering it was "fast food") and went to Houhai to check out the nightlife. Cory didn't go with us since he was tired...so Helen and I just walked around the area. The place is beautiful at night with all the lights. The bars have employees trying to rope people into the bars for cheap drinks. Helen and I got suckered into going into this one bar when they offered us a coconut milk drink for 10 yuan (it's listed as 35 yuan on their menu). We were joking around with the guys telling them we'd give them 5 yuan and it was pretty comical. They stuck to the 10 yuan price, but we went in anyways since they were pretty entertaining. Boy...were we fooled when we got in!!! When they brought out our drinks, they had alot of ice in them...so I told them that I didn't want the ice and I wanted the can so I can open it. Instead, they brought the drinks back out without the ice...which seemed fine at first...though I did tell Helen they might have diluted the coconut milk with water. Halfway through my drink, it started to taste like milk...so we call the employees over and tried to ask them if they mixed the coconut milk with regular milk. After some broken English/Chinese conversation, we finally figured out that they did mix it (one of the guys denied it at first since he didn't know). They went and got us the canned coconut milk, but then they wanted to charge us more for it. We finally decided to leave...but it was good entertainment because the guys were being so funny!!! We were laughing so much trying to talk to the guys and playing around with them that in the end, we weren't upset that we got fooled....but next time, we'll know better! :)
