We spent about a half hour wandering around the iconic Bird's Nest and the Water Cube buildings. There were tours that went into these buildings that we really wanted to try, but we were running late and still had a lot that we wanted to do, so we were content to just take some photos. It was very cold here, especially when the wind was blowing. I was happy I packed a pair of winter underwear.
Next up was the Great Wall. Daniel had learned that there is a city bus, the 919, that goes directly to a part of the Great Wall located at Badaling, and was more convenient (and much cheaper) than other transportation options. (When I told my co-workers that we used this bus, they seemed impressed - that was what the locals used to get to there.) We took a taxi ride to the start of the route, and were able to get on a bus right as it was about to leave. There were two seats left on the bus, but the seat configuration was 3 and 2 across, rather than 2 and 2. These seats were designed for slim Asians, not a larger Caucasian. I spent the entire hour+ ride with my butt hanging off of the edge the seat, not very comfortable at all. I shouldn't complain, though - Daniel and the third person were really crammed into their seats by the rest of me.
We arrived at our destination at 1:30pm, and got in line to purchase tickets. We were given two tickets each, and we had no idea exactly what we had bought. The tour guide that was on the bus with us seemed concerned that we did not have enough time to see everything, and pushed for us to head up the hill, recommending that we only climb as far as the 8th Watchtower, wherever that was. We crossed the street and wandered through the Dong Fang Bear park, complete with some breed of bears on display, We climbed up a hill and eventually came to a gate where one of our tickets were taken, and we were let inside.
We saw signs pointing the way to "slide cars", and realized that was likely what our second ticket was for. We handed them to an attendant, and headed through a queue to a metal track with a bunch of single-seat cars. We climbed into the cars, a shoulder harness was pulled over our heads, and the cars started moving up the hill along some sort of lift chain. I was getting a little nervous because this was starting to look like it could be a thrill ride, and with my heavy winter jacket and camera bag, I was having difficulties in locking down the shoulder harness. The ride operator had not done this; this was definitely not Walt Disney World. Thankfully the harness was not even necessary, the ride moved slowly and we stopped and got out at the top of the ride.
The cars put us at the bottom of a section of the Great Wall. We climbed up some steps and were soon walking on the Wall itself. This part of the Wall had been heavily renovated a while back, but still it was amazing thinking that someone had designed and built a version of this hundreds of years ago, imagining the amount of time and sweat that went into its construction.
We took our time walking up the Wall, stopping to take photos and to gaze over the hazy valleys. Many people were doing the same on this sunny but cold day. It took us about an hour or so, but we managed to make it up to the 8th Watchtower, the highest point of this part of the wall some 800 meters above sea level. (Many thanks to my walking partner Erin back in Poughkeepsie (hope you're still reading) for making sure I wouldn't be huffing and puffing by the time I reached the top!) There were a lot of people crowded in at this point, trying to get a photo of themselves. We managed to take a few photos ourselves, and then something strange happened - a couple of giggling Chinese girls asked me if I would mind having my photo taken with them. I've heard of this happening to other people visiting foreign lands, but never thought I'd ever look exotic enough for it to happen to me. I gladly complied, and still smile when I think that my face may be gracing the pages of a stranger's vacation album. (Here's hoping they haven't captioned it with "Some stupid, fat, ugly American that we wanted to throw off the Wall.")
It was time for us to start heading down again - we were told the last 919 bus left Badaling at 4pm, and that we should get back to the bus stop by 3:30pm in order to be guaranteed a seat. The last part of the trip down involved another ride on the slide cars. I thought maybe they'd let us slide down individually, adding a thrilling end to the visit, but no such luck. The cars slid down the mountain in batches, led by a brake car that kept us from going too fast.
After the ride, we spent some time wandering through the tourist traps at the bottom of the Wall, looking for some souvenirs. We took more time than we should have, arriving at the bus stop about 3:45pm to a bit of chaos. There was one bus parked there, completely full, and a bunch of mostly Chinese tourists crowded around the doors. Daniel did his best to try to understand what was going on. Nearest he could tell, there was one more bus on its way, arriving at 4:30pm, but it was not clear whether there would be room for all of us. We ran into another Caucasian, a guy from Toronto who had been traveling Asia solo. We told him what we knew, talked a bit about what other transportation alternatives we had (Train? Taxi? We didn't know where to find them) and then waited to see what would happen. A representative for the bus system came out and made a statement, all in Mandarin. The only thing that Daniel got out of it was "get in a line," so we did that. As luck would have it, we were near some college students who spoke English, and one of them was able to explain to us and our new Canadian friend what the representative had said. There was an empty bus arriving before 4:30pm, so it sounded like we had seats after all. The bus arrived shortly after, we all piled on (this time we had seats that fit my entire butt), and took off for Beijing.
We got back to Beijing about 5:30pm. There were still two items on our agenda: food and an acrobat show. Daniel had a restaurant in mind, but we didn't have reservations, so we took a taxi there to see if we could quickly get a table and eat. The taxi dropped us off at the right address (near a pair of buildings referred to as the Gemini or Twin Towers), but it took us a bit of wandering to locate the actual restaurant. We would have to wait for a table there, and we wouldn't have enough time to eat before the acrobat show. We decided to see the show and then come back to the restaurant to eat. Back in a cab, this time headed to the show. We arrived at the show theater, bought tickets, grabbed a couple of sausages at the snack bar and then found some seats. We spent the time waiting for the show to start by listening to the adventures of a very funny couple from New Zealand that we had sat next to. One of the things they described was their difficulties getting a taxi in Beijing - when they tried to wave one down, the driver would slow, see that they were not Chinese, and speed up and drive past them. Any time they needed a taxi, they had to find the nearest hotel and have the doorman tell the driver where they were headed.
The show we watched was called "Legend of Jinsha." There seemed to be some sort of loose plot, but I wasn't able to figure out what it was. The show consisted of a variety Chinese acrobatic and juggling acts, but instead of traditional music, it was set to a more modern jazzy soundtrack. The acts were good but not quite polished, and weren't anything I hadn't seen before. There were a couple of neat twists, like the pin jugglers - the pins they used were lighted, and the lights changed color in patterns. It looked to me like the lighting may have been controlled wirelessly. The finale involved motorcycles riding in a giant steel ball. I've seen this before on TV, but it was definitely more thrilling to see this live.
After the show, we got in a taxi and headed back to the restaurant we'd tried to eat at earlier. This time we were seated immediately. The menu looked so good that we ordered way too much food again, but managed to plow through most of it. We were the last customers there eating; the workers there started cleaning up around us as we were eating.
Since it was so late when we were done eating, we had to walk a bit to find a taxi. We managed to get back to the hotel just before 11pm. I reminded Daniel that I had wanted to get my hair cut. He remembered seeing a salon just a short walk from the hotel, so we headed over there to see if they could take me. They said they'd stay open as long as they had customers, so we ran back to the hotel, dumped our stuff off in our room, and headed back to the salon.
Each time we entered the salon, we were loudly greeted in Mandarin by all of the idle salon workers. It was a bit embarrassing, but funny. Daniel tried to explain what I wanted - my already short hair trimmed, not too short, but cleaned up. In addition to the cut, I also had my hair washed, and they gave me an upper-body massage - head, neck shoulders, and arms. Daniel had a wash and massage as well. The workers here were young and enthusiastic, definitely a fun place to get a haircut! We got back to the hotel room about midnight, a late end to a very busy but enjoyable vacation day.
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