The Great Wall

Saturday we hiked the third section of the Great Wall called Mutianyu. This section of the wall is less trafficked and we could avoid hiking with massive amounts of tourists. Our tour guide came to pick us up in the early AM and we made the 1.5 hour drive through the country side, narrowly escaping death with every 3 cars we passed. Our driver was not like Mr. Liu at all, even though mr. Liu is crazypants, he has mad driving skills. This guy that drove us was a maniac and honked at everyone and everything we passed. If I had booze with me, I could have played a drinking game--every time the driver honks, take a sip. I would have needed to have my stomach pumped by the time we reached the wall. 

Anyway, our tour guide, a local Beijinger named Cherry (yep, like the fruit), kept telling us that "Michelle and her daughters" visited this section of the wall and I kept thinking to myself, what the hell is she talking about, then after the third mention, I pieced it together that she was talking about Michelle Obama. She kept referring to her like we knew her personally.

So I can't exactly say that seeing the Great Wall was on my bucket list. I never thought my personal travels would take me to China let alone work taking me here, but I sure am happy to have been able to see it in person. What an amazing sight. I can't even fathom how they built the wall on top of these mountains and then built it for roughly 4,000 miles! Pictures just won't do it justice (even though I took about 200 of them). 

The wall was still intact and I'm not sure how much of it has been restored, but it was a hike! There are parts of the wall that are flat that you see in pictures, but this section had very few parts like that. We walked up and down steps of varying degrees...some steps just outright scary. I won't need to use a stairmaster for a good week. 

As we got to the turnaround point and started out trek back, the tourists started to pile in. If this was the less trafficked part of the wall, I'd hate to see what the other two touristy sections were like. Tour buses were showing up in mobs.

It was pretty cool to see the generations of families making the trip to the wall together. Seeing grandparents, parents and grandchildren all venturing the climb to the top was pretty common. Some of these women and men look like like they're as old as Confucius, so the thought of them climbing what I just climbed is pretty frightening. All elderly people should be required to wear life alert while hiking the Great Wall. 

And of course, along with the cool stuff, there is something that is always outrageous, and that my friends are the Chinese women and their outfit choices. These women were decked out to hike this wall in white rompers paired with Tory Burch and Gucci wedges. I hiked in workout pants, a tank and my Nikes, and promptly began sweating my ass off the moment I stepped out of the tour van. These ladies look like they're going out partying on a Saturday night. It would be the equivalent of going to the Grand Canyon in a cocktail dress. WTF. 

The tour was followed up by stops at two total tourist traps, a jade factory and a tea house. At trap #1 we did a "tour" of the jade factory, this consisted of a woman pointing at rocks in a showcase and watching some guy laser cut jade for 20 seconds. After 5 minutes we were herded into a room the size of a football field showcasing of jade items for purchase. I walked the perimeter of the store and refused to look at anything other than jade sculptures that were no less than $500 USD. The sales woman stalked me around the store and I asked me if I wanted to look at jewelry, so I told her I worked for a company that sold jewelry and I had enough already. She promptly responded "then perhaps you'd like to look at some jade figurines?" I had zero response for that. Seriously, who wants jade figurines?! It's like the Chinese version of Hummel, no thanks. 

Then my favorite...tourist trap #2, our visit to the tea house. This 80lb girl let us taste three kinds of tea and tried to sell it to us from a range of 400RNB-600RNB. And to convert to USD for you readers, that's a range from $65-$95 USD...FOR TEA. For "tea that comes boxed in their own individual boxes so you can have for yourself, or bring home to your family and friends as gifts." She even said that one tea would make me skinny and I won't lie, I got roped in for a split second thinking that tea could help me lose weight. Then my inner conscious took over and slapped me back into reality by telling me, "No Lauren, not eating like a Neanderthal will make you lose weight." If I didn't know any better, this girl could have been a host on QVC (though I'm not sure about that losing weight claim. We'd have to run that through legal).

All in all, we had a great day at the Great Wall and a little taste of Chinese tourist traps...definitely good comedy.