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The room was quite comfortable, and we slept well. But
Craig woke up at 3 a.m. after having a nightmare about work. We chatted for a while and he eventually fell back to sleep.
The timing was funny because the day and time made me think of the Simon and Garfunkel song "Wednesday Morning 3 a.m."
We woke up at 7 a.m. and didn't bother taking showers as we would be hiking the Great Wall today. From our bed, we could see the sun shining on the Great Wall high above us, snaking its way through the green mountains. The sky was once again blue. The weather was just unbeliavable...one sunny day after the next which is apparently quite unheard of. It was amazing to be seeing one of the wonders of the world from our bed! We also had a patio. We opened the door and were saddened to find a small dead bird. I guess that's one drawback to the nice wall of windows - birds fly into them. We hoped that this wouldn't be portentous of the day or trip to come, and we made some uneasy jokes about Bob Marley's lyrics about "three little birds on my doorstep". We got to see the hotel grounds in the daylight. It was quite nice and well landscaped. We went over to breakfast at 7:45. Next to the dining room was a nice sitting room. There was a fireplace with fresh coals, there were books and comfortable lounge chairs. This as certainly the kind of place we would have liked to stay an additional day if we had room in the itinerary. It was a shame to breeze in and out so quickly, but that's what needed to be done in order to see everything we wanted to see. We enjoyed the breakfast buffet: eggs, sausage, bacon, cornbread, toast, coffee, green tea, orange juice, apple juice, cheese, fruit salad containing white dragonfruit, and hash browns. There was a table of businessmen seated at the next table over. Our breakfast soon became less enjoyable as they proceeded to start a full-on business meeting at full volume at the breakfast table. The American had his computer on the table and was giving a powerpoint presentation to his Australian colleagues. It was all about recruiting high salary talent in China and how much commission they would make, shutting out other headhunters, etc. Not what we wanted to hear about while on vacation. As we left the dining room, they were concluding their meeting and were complaining about hearing noise in the middle of the night. They said it sounded like a TV, but the rooms don't have TV. We realized that one of them was in the room next to ours. Maybe they heard us talking at 3 a.m. when Craig woke up from his nightmare. Good, we hope we disrupted their sleep as much as they disrupted our breakfast! We checked out of the hotel at 8:55 a.m., and Alice and Mr. Chou were there to meet us. We drove the very short distance to the entrance of the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. Alice bought our entrance tickets, which included a cable car ticket to get up to the wall, and a toboggan (what we know as an alpine slide) ticket to get back down. Alternatively, you can climb over 4000 steps from the entrance up to the wall. But we wanted to save our energy for hiking on the Wall itself. We weren't sure how difficult the hike would be, especially for Craig with his MS issues, so better safe than sorry. There were tons of schoolkids here, all dressed in matching blue and white jackets. There was a small trailer in which you could view films about the wall. It was called the Fantastic 7D-5D film Projection Vehicle. That's a lot of dimensions! It reminded us of the Red House trailer where we watched a Jimi Hendrix movie in Memphis back in 2001. We queued up for a shuttle bus, and it took us on a very short ride and let us out in a shopping and food concourse. We were disappointed to see a Burger King and Subway here. There were also plenty of gift shops, and one was selling a print of the people with bare bums that marked the restroom in the Red Wall Garden restaurant. Art here definitely isn't as uptight as I had expected! There are two cable cars to choose from to get up to the Wall: a more modern enclosed gondola and an old-school open-air ski lift. Alice prefers the latter, and it was definitely the right choice. Everyone else either walked up to the Wall or took the enclosed cable car. The open-air ski lift is quite a distance away from the enclosed one. It is located above the toboggan track, and we were literally the only ones riding it. Craig and I got onto the lift and Alice was behind us. We waved to one another and took pictures as we looked down at the trees and metal toboggan track beneath us. We got off of the lift at guard tower #6. There was barely anyone around and it was so peaceful. It was also surreal, as we practically had the Wall to ourselves. We walked to the right to guard towers #5 and #4. It was slighty pleasantly chilly. Alice explained that the Beijing-facing side of the wall has 7 layers of bricks above the walk path, whereas the outer side has 8. As we walked toward tower #4, Beijing was to our right. The Mutianyu section of the Great Wall was first built in the mid-6th century and connects Juyongguan Pass in the west and Gubeikou Great Wall in the east. The Mutianyu Pass consists of 3 watchtowers and was built in 1404. During the Ming Dynasty in 1569, two generals rebuilt it to fortify defenses of the capital and imperial mausoleums. It stretches for 2250 meters (1.4 miles), and is 23-26 feet high and 4-5 yards wide. There are 22 watchtowers in this stretch of the Wall, which is apparently a greater density than in other places. They are situated approximately every 100 meters. There are merlons (with cannons) on both sides of the wall, so that it could be defended on both sides. The Mutianyu section of the Wall was restored in the 1980's, as part of Deng Xiaoping's campaign to "Love China, Rebuild the Great Wall". It is estimated that approximately half of the bricks needed replacement during the restoration. Attention was paid to detail, and carvings, water downspouts, and other functional and decorative adornments were salvaged or replicated. Mutianyu is now the longest fully restored section of the Wall which is open to tourists. We changed directions so that Beijing was on our left. The blue sky was beautiful. We couldn't believe that we were actually walking on the Great Wall of China! It is so iconic, and it didn't disappoint. You could see it winding off into the distance, as far as the eye could see. We could see all of the blue and white jacketed schoolkids descending in our direction from the other cable car. We had heard that walking on the wall was quite difficult, and we didn't know how Craig would manage it. It had been one of his biggest worries as the trip approached, because he wanted so much to be able to fully enjoy the experience. We were pleasantly surprised. Although the steps are irregular, all in all it was much more manageable than we had feared. The restoration was well done. Craig felt good, and we explored guard towers, looked at the cast iron cannons which could shoot 150 meters, etc. The temperature was pleasant, and there was a very nice breeze. Leaves were changing color to yellow and orange and blowing around. In some spots, flowers and weeds were growing on / out of the wall. After giving us a good orientation, Alice left us on our own to explore as much as we liked. We knew that the original plan had been to leave around noon for lunch and driving back to Beijing, but she did not give us a time limit. We kept walking and walking. I was a bit nervous for Craig and didn't want him to overdo it so early in the trip. Like they say on Mt. Everest, the summit is only halfway. We still needed to get back to tower 6 to meet up with Alice and take the toboggan down. But Craig insisted he was doing well and wanted to continue.I was doing quite well also, so we continued. Before we knew it, we were at tower 14, the site of the enclosed cable car. This section was much more busy. Still we continued on. Ahead of us, in the distance, we could see a huge, steep staircase. It looked daunting. I nicknamed it the Stairway to Heaven. Above it we could see more guard towers until the wall faded into the distance. There was a white radio tower on one of the mountain peaks. I asked Craig how far he intended to go before turning back. He said the tower was his goal. So we continued on. Workers were securing some of the granite paving stones, enjoying a cigarette in front of the No Smoking sign. We took note of the irony. A sign indicated the filming location of a movie called "If You Are The One II". In some spots, flowers and weeds were growing on / out of the wall. The crowds thinned out again as we got further away from the cable car station. We both still felt very good. We knew that we were going much further than Alice had anticipaed, and that she must be wondering where we were. But Craig didn't want to have regrets about doing less than he was capable of, so we continued. When we reached the large stairway, we realized how tall, steep, and unrelenting it was. The steps were very tall and I needed to take frequent breaks. It was the only part that I found difficult. We thought that we were running low on water, so we tried to conserve our intake. We finally got to the flat part at the top of the staircase and rested. We had made it to Tower 23. There was yet another set of very tall and steep stairs that led up to a section with an electrical tower. Craig wanted to continue on, but I didn't think that it was a good idea for him or for me. We still needed to get all the way back, and traditionally Craig's legs get weaker as time goes on, which makes descending steep steps difficult and dangerous. But Craig can be sort of stubborn and didn't want to stop. Luckily for me, I noticed a sign that read "No tourist section. Please donot [sic] pass". Since Craig likes to follow the rules, this was my saving grace. We texted Steve from here. An enterprising Chinese couple was selling drinks here are the furthest point. As we thought we were out of water (I was a bit panicky about dehydration, which caused me to somehow overlook the 2 water bottles squirreled away in Craig's pack), we decided to splurge on a Coke. Sure, the price was high, but he woman's husband had carried the drinks all the way up here. For 20 yuan, it was the best $3.25 we have spent. The man's effort was definitely worth the cost to us. After taking a nice rest, we headed back down. Most people were now gone from the wall. The schoolgroup was nowhere to be seen. It was very nice and empty. As we walked, we saw Alice coming towards us. She got a big smile on her face. She was worried that we had taken so long, so she was glad that we were safe and happy. She suggested taking the enclosed cable car back down, as it was closer. We said that we still wanted to go back to tower 6 to the toboggan ride. Alice looked worried, and said that we needed to hurry. That would be difficult because Craig's legs were starting to weaken and his knee bothers him going downhill. We were afraid that he might hurt or exhaust himself if he tried to hurry on the irregular surface of the wall. We asked why we were in such a hurry. She explained that our itinerary called for visiting the Lama Temple in Beijing. It was now early afternoon, and we might not make it before the temple closes. We assured Alice that spending quality time at the wall was more important to us than visiting the Lama Temple. We appreciated the fact that she was working so hard to keep to the scheduled itinerary, but that we would prefer to skip the Lama Temple as opposed to rushing off. Alice seemed very relieved by this news, and we continued at a leisurely pace back to tower 6. This is another reason why we often choose solo tours...the ability to be a bit more spontaneous based on how Craig is feeling. He was feeling good and we both were johj pn adrenaline from hiking the Great Wall on such a beautiful day. We decided to live in the now rather than hurrying off to do the next thing. We arrived back at tower # 6 around 2 p.m. So we had been hiking the wall for nearly 5 hours! The toboggan was similar to alpine slides that we had each ridden in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, but the track here was made of metal rather than fiberglass. Craig went down first, followed by me and then Alice. It was a lot of fun. Employees kept yelling for us to slow down, though in actuality, we were trying be cautious. We walked through ths gauntlet of shops. Craig got quite a bargain - a T-shirt procliaming "I have climbed up the Great Wall of China" for 30 yuan ($5). Alice was impressed with his negotiating skills. I guess it helps to outstay most of the other tourists. We got back to the car and Mr. Chou was a little bit cranky that we were so late for lunch. We drove a very short distance to the Xiao Long Pu restaurant from last night. For lunch, we had sweet and sour tempura pork, seasoned green beans, a seasoned bacon dish with onions and peppers, and a chicken dish. We shared a Sprite and Craig had a beer. Mr. Chou did not eat with us, but seemed to be feeling happier once he got some food into his system. We drove back to Beijing. We were feeling very punchy on the ride and had a lot of laughs. The expressway has some interesting cartoony signs about serious subjects - such as falling asleep at the wheel and drunk driving. As we approached the toll plaza, we saw a funny sign warning about vehicle height restrictions. It showed a cartoon of a giraffe's neck sticking out through a sunroof and had a red slash through it. At the toll plaza, we also saw a fleet of about a dozen soldiers riding motorcycles. They rode in a two lane formation, according to their seqentially numbered license plates. Mr. Chou was kind enough to drive us right past the Bird's Nest one final time for photos. You could see the sun setting through the building and it was very picturesque. We arrived back at the Red Wall Garden at 5:45 p.m. Alice hadn;t forgotten that we wanted to explore Snack Street. She asked if we wanted her to take us there, or if we wanted to go by ourselves. We told her we would appreciate going with her, if it's not too much of a bother. We knew basically where it was and what it entailed, but it would be nice to go with someone who knows how to get there and could give us suggestions as to what Chinese delicacies to sample. She said that would be fine, and that she would meet us at 6:30 to walk us there. We checked in and this time our room was #2303 on the third floor. The window overlooked the hutong rather than a courtyard. As much as we had loved our 2 level room, this one was actually more practical for overnight bathroom visits, since it had no stairs (especially after a long day of hiking on the Great Wall). At 6:30, Alice walked with us through Jinbao Street past the very fancy luxury car dealerships, stores named after famous international designers, and a flashy Apple store with a huge LED billboard out front. People were renting weird light-up gyroscope contraptions in which they rode around on the sidewalks. We arrived a Wangfujing Snack Street and saw the familiar (from TV) stalls along one side of the street selling just about any kind of food that you could imagine. Alice pointed out some of the items on offer - silk worms on a skewer, snake on a skewer, scorpions on a skewer, tarantulas on a skewer. At 7 o'clock, she had to leave to catch the subway. We said our goodnights and continued to explore. We definitely wanted to try something unusual, but we weren't sure what. We had seen Samantha Brown eat a deep fried starfish here on television. They serve it on a skewer and she had made a joke about looking like some kind of demented fairy godmother. We decided to follow her lead, and one of the hawkers tossed a starfish into a wok and deep fried it for us. We each took a bite, but it was very dry and burnt tasting. It almost tasted like exteremely burnt toast. We couldn't finish the whole thing, because it was just so dry. We wanted to try something else. How many opportunities like this might we ever have? I chose the small scorpions. There were two to a skewer - one for each of us. The hawker deep fried them for us and we ate them whole. They actually weren't bad...just a crunchy fried snack. An artist named Andy who spoke good English approached us and told us that he was heading to California soon to teach watercolors and calligraphy. He asked if we would like to see his gallery. We assumed that it was in one of the shops on the main street. However, he led us down an alley and to a building, and then into a little room that was more of a storage closet than a gallery. He was a hard sell, but he was a good salesman. I liked his paintings of the Great Wall, since we had just spent the day there and were still high on the adrenaline of doing the climb. He had nice vertical paintings of different seasons, and they were mounted on silk scrolls. I liked the summer one. He was asking 1100 yuan, which was way too much. He asked for our best price, but we didn't want to insult him. When it became obvious that we weren't going to bite, he lowered the price to 200 yuan, we couldn't say no. Of course, he still tried to sell us even more, but we thanked him and took our leave. We walked back to the hotel, arriving at 8:30. I wrote in the journal and we went to bed at 9:45. It would be an early morning as we would be flying to Guizhou. We were excited to get to meet Wang Jun tomorrow for the second leg of our Chinese adventure. Craig's pedometer registered 15320 steps since noon when we texted Steve from tower 23 in the Great Wall, and that was just half of the Wall hiking that we did! Great Wall at Mutianyu Beijing National Stadium (Bird's Nest) Wangfujing Snack Street |
 View up at the Great Wall from our bed at the Brickyard Hotel  Taking the old-school cable car up to the Mutianyu wall  Great Wall, Mutianyu  Great Wall, Mutianyu  Outside the Wall, Mutianyu  Cannon, Great Wall, Mutianyu  Great Wall, Mutianyu  Great Wall, Mutianyu  The steep stairway to Tower 23  We made it to the end of the tourist trail (Tower 23)  Autumn colors at Mutianyu  Autumn colors at Mutianyu  On our way back to Tower 6  Toboggan slide  Chinese National Stadium (Bird's Nest) at sunset  Sampling deep friend starfsh at Wangfujing Snack Street  Scorpion kebabs at Wangfujing Snack Street (much better than the starfish!) 
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