{"id":120,"date":"2009-09-11T23:58:07","date_gmt":"2009-09-11T15:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/?p=120"},"modified":"2009-09-12T00:30:40","modified_gmt":"2009-09-11T16:30:40","slug":"if-you-build-it-they-will-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/?p=120","title":{"rendered":"If you build it, they will come!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Today was a great adventure!<\/div>\n
A few of us had been talking all week about doing something on Friday because we were all free.\u00a0 The idea of going to the Great Wall came up.\u00a0 We all kind of agreed that it would be a great day for it.\u00a0 The weather was beautiful!\u00a0 Yesterday we searched for buses that would take us where we needed to go.\u00a0 It’s sort of difficult to sort out the bus website.\u00a0 After much frustration, I decided to Google search how to get to a particular section of the Great Wall, Mutianyu \u5e55\u7530\u5cea\u957f\u57ce.\u00a0 This worked like a charm. \ud83d\ude42\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

We got off the subway at our desired location and then found the buses.\u00a0 The bus that we wanted (936) was no where to be found. \u00a0So we took a different route.\u00a0 We\u00a0made it safely\u00a0to Huairou.\u00a0 We were warned that there may be lots of guys driving mini-buses wanting to take us up the rest of the way.\u00a0 We turned down the first one and stayed on the bus.\u00a0\u00a0After waiting a long time at a bus stop, another man came on the bus.\u00a0 It was interesting that they only wanted the foreigners.\u00a0 They did not give the Chinese people the time of day.\u00a0 This is because they wanted our money!\u00a0 The next man that came on the bus offered to take us up and back for Y25 each.\u00a0 We decided that we would get there sooner if we would just go with this man.\u00a0 The mini-bus was quite a ride!\u00a0\u00a0He took us up, showed us where to pay the entrance fee and then said he would wait for us.\u00a0 This sounded awesome!<\/p>\n

We paid our entrance fee and also the fee to ride the cable car.\u00a0 If you know me well, you know that I’m freaking out right about now.\u00a0 I have this SMALL fear of heights and these cable cars are not close to the ground.\u00a0\u00a0 Surprisingly, I calm down about one minute into the ride up and realize that it is quite enjoyable.\u00a0 Below us is nothing but trees and the chute for the toboggan for getting back down. More on that later.<\/p>\n

As soon as we got up to the top, I was in love!\u00a0 I can’t possibly put into words a description of the view that was before me.\u00a0 To walk on a piece of history and experience creation all around me was amazing!\u00a0 It was such a beautiful day to experience this.\u00a0 I’m at a loss for words, and I hope that the pictures below do the view justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After we were done photographing the Wall, we made it back to where the cable cars brought us up.\u00a0 The way down was much more enjoyable.\u00a0 We tobogganed!\u00a0 It was a pretty long way down so I was able to enjoy the ride for quite a while.\u00a0 When we got off the toboggans we decided to walk through the street-market to see what there was.\u00a0 Vendors knew limited English.\u00a0 You would hear, “two t-shirts for a dollar.”\u00a0 Do they even know what a dollar is?\u00a0 I kind of wanted to get out a dollar and say, “okay!”\u00a0 I did end up buying a t-shirt for an outrageous price.\u00a0 We were able to practice our bargaining skills a little.\u00a0 Some of the vendors would grab us by the arm and not let go.\u00a0 It was a little overwhelming but after a while I got used to saying, “bu yao.”<\/p>\n

Our mini-bus driver found us and wanted to go back down.\u00a0 We wanted to continue looking.\u00a0 I’m not sure if he was angry or not, but he started to follow us around.\u00a0 Hmmm…..\u00a0 Finally, we got back into the mini-bus and he said, “Y25 for one way. Y50 for both ways.”\u00a0 This was not his original offer and we were a little upset about it.\u00a0 We sat there arguing with him about his price and another driver brought a travel guide to show us the going rate.\u00a0 We decided that we would just pay him and find another way back.\u00a0 We got out of the mini-bus and left our irate driver.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With no idea about how we would get back to Beijing, we decided to walk around a bit.\u00a0 And then we found the elusive 936 bus!!\u00a0 We hurried to get on the bus and it left soon after we got on it.\u00a0 This was the bus we wanted to ride to Mutianyu \u5e55\u7530\u5cea in the first place.\u00a0 We were very excited to find it!\u00a0<\/p>\n

After a long day of bike,\u00a0subway, bus, mini-bus, cable car, walking, toboggoning, bus, subway, bike, it was time to take a nap.\u00a0 I dozed off for an hour or so and then got up to meet two others for supper.\u00a0 We experienced hot pot for the first time!\u00a0 This was interesting.\u00a0 We must have looked like we didn’t know anything because the waitress brought over the bus boy to speak limited English with us.\u00a0 She then proceeded to bring out aprons and put them on each of us!\u00a0 There was much laughter throughout the restaurant!\u00a0 Delicious food, good company, and making the Chinese people laugh.\u00a0 Who could ask for more?<\/p>\n

I hope you enjoy the photos!<\/p>\n

\"View

View from the Wall<\/p><\/div>\n

\"IMG_4688\"<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4647\"<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4615\"<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4684\"<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4669\"<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4605\"<\/p>\n

\"Am

Am I coming or am I going?? <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was a great adventure! A few of us had been talking all week about doing something on Friday because we were all free.\u00a0 The idea of going to the Great Wall came up.\u00a0 We all kind of agreed that it would be a great day for it.\u00a0 The weather was beautiful!\u00a0 Yesterday we searched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}