11.13.09
Today we woke up in our still cold room and put on every article of clothing we owned in preparation for the day. I ended up with jeans, 2 pairs of socks, tennis shoes, my mickey scarf, 2 long-sleeve shirts, a t-shirt, a sweater and both layers of my NorthFace jacket. I also carried my SAS sweatshirt, just in case. And I had Ping, my Panda Hat.
We went down to breakfast, which consisted of, for me, sweet potatoes, fried chicken paste (that was weird), and some sort of lo mein noodles. It was a pretty good breakfast.
Our first stop of the day was to the Cloisonné factory. That is the traditional Chinese pottery. They take copper pots, dishes, ashtrays, vases and basically everything else and put a pattern on it in raised copper. Then it is taken to another section where color is applied using eye droppers. Then it is sent off the kiln to be fired. The final step is polishing. It was a cool process to watch. We had an awesome tour guide named Babbit (not Rabbit). He was too cute and would walk around and say “Follow Babbit.” The funny thing is that he actually picked Babbit to be his English name.
When we had seen all of the process, he showed us the “happy house” aka the bathroom, and the gift shop of the factory. The shop was ridiculously expensive, but I did manage to find a thimble for 40 yuan (~$5.50). A little pricey, but it has been the only thimble that I have seen. They have the goofiest system for buying things. They take what you want and give you a receipt. You take that receipt to the cashier and pay. Then they give you a stamped receipt back and you go back to where you found what you wanted. You give the stamped receipt to the lady and collect what you bought. It seemed like a huge waste of energy, but whatever.
Caroline and I got into a snowball fight, which somehow spread once we were on the bus. A group from Denmark, which had some super hot guys, decided it would be fun to throw snowballs at our bus…and the snowballs began.
Our second stop was the Ming Tombs, which is where all the emperor’s of the Ming Dynasty are buried. The grounds are really pretty, but Bertha froze in the cold weather so I didn’t really get that many pictures. We walked until we found the entrance, went through a security check and went down an endless flight of stairs into the tombs.
It was kind of weird, people just threw money onto the tombs and I am not really sure why. Perhaps respect for the dead? We emerged from the tombs, which were not really as exciting as they should have been, in to the Soul Temple. We had to be sure to exit with our right foot (left for guys) so that the tombs would not keep our souls. I figure my soul  would be a good thing to keep.
We met up with Dani, Cody, Caroline, and Robyn. We still had a long time until we had to be back on the bus, so we hit up a food stand and got more oreos and delicious sweet potatoes. Dani was adventurous and tried the corn on the cob. It tasted like corn, but it was a little tough.
We slowly made our way back to the entrance. Kelsey and I visited the gift shop and found some deals. I bought a Great Wall model thing for 3 yuan ($.50) and Kelsey got some bags. We got a little lost going back to the bus, but we eventually made it back.
We are lunch at a super touristy place. You had to walk through this HUGE showroom to even get to the restaurant Lunch was delicious though. I had some of the best sweet and sour pork ever. And we finally got some rice.
We walked around the showroom, which was also really expensive. This place was interesting because it was really expensive, but the ceiling was leaking. There were buckets and water all over the floor. I did buy some stamps.
After lunch, we made it to the GREAT WALL!! It was covered in snow. The section Yolanda took us to made a big semi circle, so we went up one way and went down the other. Chinese legend says that you are not a real man unless you climb to the top of the Great Wall. So today we became real men. We started the hike and all I have to say is “Holy Table Mountain Batman!” It really didn’t help that the stairs were slick with ice and snow and slush and they were uneven and super steep. Thank God for the handrails or it would have been bad news bears. We stopped on the way to take pictures and such. We met some people who were from Alaska and Chicago. We even got a picture with one of them, but that was kind of by accident. We asked them to take a picture of Kelsey and I and then one of them just jumped in with us. It was kind of awkward. We climbed on, but at one point we were ambushed. Lead by Iker, we were bombarded with snowballs from the nearest tower. It really didn’t help that we were trying to keep our balance on the stairs. In trying to hit us, they actually hit some non-SASers so that was actually kind of funny. They had entirely way too much fun with that. So we were able to sneak by and get up into the next tower and load up on ammo before they were able to get there. Somewhere along the way, we picked up two Chinese allies. So here we are on the top of the Great Wall of China preparing for an epic snowball fight. We had to wait for a bit for them to come by, but when they did we unloaded. It turned into the world war of snowball fights. There was the US, the Chinese, Iker, who is from the Basque country in Spain, and somehow some French guys got involved. It lasted a good 30-45 minutes. It was a blast. I can’t believe I had a snowball fight on the Great Wall of China – who does that?
We pressed on and eventually made it to the top. So I guess I am officially a man. Kelsey and I took our man pictures and celebrated our victory. We had to take pictures quickly because the cameras were freezing in the cold weather. So we are all going to have to share pictures. After relishing in the moment for a bit, we started back down again. It was super steep and even more snow/ice covered than the stairs on the way up. The handrail was a lifeline. It was so snow packed and steep that we invented a new sport – sneaker skiing. You basically held onto the handrail and slide down the stairs. It was pretty fun and there were no injuries to report.
Toward the bottom it went super steep and even more slippery. I switched to the repelling method. I went down the stairs backwards using the handrail as my rope. It worked really well. The whole thing was slightly ridiculous and really nerve wracking because if you slip you are going to need to go to the hospital and we left the first aid kit on the bus. When we got close to the bottom, I happened to look up and spot a camel. Yep a camel – in China. That was bizarre.
We finally made it to the bottom and had to get directions from a couple from Illinois to get headed the right way to the bus. Everything was closed or closing down so we ran to the vendor stand to get our man certificates. We were met by a camel wearing Aladdin pants halfway there. It was just like WTF?
We searched the stands and finally found one that had certificates. After some bargaining we got it down to 35. We wrote down our names and she “engraved” them with our name and date. I use the word engrave loosely. It basically meant that she scratched it with a pen. We boarded the bus now that we had documentation that we had become men. Leslie, Ana and MacGarret had not yet boarded the bus and we were late, since we had taken longer to get down form the wall because of all the snow and ice. They were technically late so when they got on we all yelled “Dock Time!” That was pretty funny.
We went directly from the Great Wall to a restaurant on the Peking University campus to eat with some students. At our table we had Joanna, Yao Fung, and another girl named Rose, who had to leave early. We got to try the famous Peking Duck. I am not really a big fan of the duck, but it wasn’t exactly bad. The weird part was the skin. In the markets, there is someone whose sole job is to separate the skin from the meat. They do this by slitting the throat and then blowing into that slit so that the air separates the skin from the meat, but yet the meat still stays really juicy. Yeah, that is pretty gross. The serve the duck in these really thin tortilla type things with strips of cantaloupe and onion and with a sweet soy sauce. I skipped out on the veggies, but it was still good.
After dinner, we went to a gathering hall on campus for a party with some more students. There weren’t that many students there, but it was still really fun. We started with a game to get to know everyone – the American classic of Never Have I Ever. I don’t think I have ever played that game with such appropriate questions. They then busted out a jump rope and we tried some double dutch, but the ceiling was too low, so we turned it into a game of limbo. What I learned from that game is that Iker and Olivia are a lot more flexible than I am.
Our next activity was an eating contest. Bananas, pistachios and something else. The person sitting at the table couldn’t use their hands, but there was a person standing behind them and they actually had to feed them. That was pretty funny. Cody and Madison won because Cody just ate the pistachios without peeling them first. Then we went to a pigtail contest. That was interesting. Matt and Olivia went with the quality over quantity strategy as he braided the hair. They barely had 2 minutes to do all this. There really wasn’t a winner.
Olivia and Laila also got up and did the Thriller dance and then taught all of use a part of it. That was really fun. I think the PKU students enjoyed it as well. While we were all up we ended the night with Ships and Sailors, which is kind of a take off of Simon Says, but way more fun. I can’t remember who won, but it was a great way to end the night. Before we went back to the hotel, we traded contact info with Alice, Yolanda and Yao Fung.
Alice walked Kelsey and I back to the hotel. We then gave her a little something. I gave her one of my Disney rings and Kelsey gave her some pencils and such. We said our goodbyes and Kelsey and I headed upstairs and crashed.