Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Beijing (excursion to Badaling and the Great Wall)

Up early to go to the Great Wall. It was a little over an hour’s ride to Badaling. When we got there, it had clouded over and was very cold. Our driver thought we would want to take the cable car up, but we convinced Shanliang that we preferred to walk. I wanted Starbucks coffee, from the shop right by the wall. We also convinced him to go left when he preferred right, because the geocache said to go left. Turns out the crowd was much less to the left. The sun came out and it was a beautiful day. But the walk was STEEP! We couldn’t find the monument for the cache. They moved it for the Olympics and I misunderstood what had happened so Phil and Shanliang did a lot of dangerous bushwacking around the porta potties. On the way up we bought a pounded slate artwork of the wall from the artist. On the way down, Shanliang reimbursed us the amount of my visa and Phil bought himself a baseball cap and a t-shirt.

When we got back to Beijing, Shanliang wanted to take us out for roasted duck. Our timing was just wrong. We stopped at about 5 different places and the driver and Shanliang gave up and went to a hot pot place that was both fun and good. We boiled our food – thin sliced beef and mutton and veggies in broth. Phil and the driver had the spicy one and Shanliang and I had mild. Once again no dinner for us.

No comments: