Today we are going on a private tour that we booked through Viator the day we left home. We had put off choosing tours and finally made the decision on two tours, and one of them was canceled due to the lack of participation by other people, they would not run it for just the two of us since it was a small group tour.
The tour we signed up for today was the Mutianyu Great Wall and Summer Palace Private Day Tour, which was scheduled for about eight hours long. We set our pickup time as 8:00 AM, meeting in the lobby of the hotel.
I woke up at about 6:00 AM and made a cup of coffee with the pods in the room. I finally figured out which coffee pod was better and it was not the first one I had chosen yesterday, the other was much smoother. I was finally able to find a light over the bar area and read about the coffee pods, and none of them were decaf like I thought yesterday. Bot were regular coffee, but the one I tried today was not as strong. With coffee ion hand, I did my normal routine, working on the blog post, desperately trying to catch up to the current date, but I was not making a lot of progress.
I woke Stephanie up at about 6:45 AM so we could get ready and eat a light breakfast in the room, the bagels and cream cheese we had purchased form the grocery store yesterday. We did not want to eat a big breakfast in the buffet and then go on an all-day tour.
We were ready to go with all of our gear and headed down to the lobby at 7:55 AM. The lobby was the designated meeting point for our tour guide. A lady approached us as we got to the reception desk, and asked our names to confirm we were the tour party she was looking for. Her name was Lucy.
After we all introduced ourselves and Lucy confirmed our names against the reservation, we headed out the door to our waiting car. It was a nice and comfortable car, and we met our driver after getting in, we could not [pronounce his name much less spell, so we will give him an English name and call him “Sam” in this post. Of course, Lucy was not our guide’s real Chinese name either, just her “English guide name” so we could remember and pronounce it!
We headed out for the long drive to Mutaynyu, which is the town where one of two sections of the Great Wall has been restored. Much of the remainder of the wall is in its original untouched condition, and there are trees growing on it as well as other vegetation. We also learned it is not allowed for people, especially tourists, to walk on areas of the wall that are not restored in order to preserve it as much as possible.
Of course, there was a lot of traffic for the first hour of the drive as we headed out of Beijing, we did not get very far in distance. During the drive, Lucy asked if we would be interested in attending a Chinese Acrobat show. She said her company could get us good seats in the middle section and there were two price ranges of tickets. We thought about it, first asking how the extra hour for the show would impact the rest of the tour. Lucy said it was a private tour, so there was no restriction on time, we would still complete all of the other tour activities, and the tour would just get extended by the amount of time for the show, which was one hour long.
We thought about it and agreed to go to the show in the afternoon after our lunch and visit to the Great Wall.
We could pay by Alipay and we would be set to go. Well, our Alipay account was locked because of the issue we had with our credit card being shut down yesterday because of suspected fraud. We had already called the bank and everything was cleared there, but now Alipay itself had locked it. There was a link in Alipay to “Appeal” the restriction, so I tried to use that to fix the account. I kept getting a “Network Error” when I hit the link, and we were not making any progress, and it was frustrating.
I finally decided to put our Capital One Credit card into Alipay App as a secondary payment option, so I entered the information into the app and thought we were now set to go. The restriction was only on the other credit card, so we should not have any issues if we used the CapitalOne card instead.
We scanned the Alipay QR code Lucy had and the payment went through, we were set. Well, not so fast, now I received a text message from Capital One that our charge had been flagged as suspicious, and was not approved, and I needed to call their fraud department. This was even more frustrating because I had tried to put in a travel notification for Capital One, but they no longer do those, the website said that we were set to go no matter where we traveled. Well, I guess that was not true, the first time we tried to use the card in China, it was rejected and shut down.
It was also a little embarrassing, and I was not happy having to try and do all of this while we are on a tour, but luckily, we were just driving in traffic. I called the Capital One fraud number from the text message and spoke with a representative. There was a lot of information the rep wanted me to give her to verify my identity. It all seemed a little bit ridiculous, the rep wanted to know some recent specific times and purchase amount information, and I told her I could not recall that level of detail. Finally, I answered enough questions for her to believe I was really me, and we discussed the transaction. She finally lifted the restriction and I told her to make sure that charges from China would be approved in the future. I asked her to specifically make a note that many if the charges would start with the letters “ALP” for Alipay. They are not all the same charges, but the redundant use of the ALP letters seemed to fraud trigger issues since they looked like they were the same starting with “ALP”, but them followed by different vendor names.
This had taken about 10 minutes, and now we had to try and make the charge again, fingers crossed. This time, it went through and we were set with our tickets for later today for the acrobat show.
During the drive, we learned a lot about China and the Great Wall, which is called the Long Wall in Chinese. It was used to protect the Chinese from the neighboring Mongols, who were always invading China. The wall’s main section is over 5,000 km long, but there are other segments making the total length over 10,000 km in length. As I said before, much of the wall has not restored and is deteriorating, but still exists.
We also talked about China itself and some of the more recent history, and the transition from having an Emperor to now being Communist. It was interesting to hear about how China had initially changed to communism so that everyone could be equal, which tends to happen when there are distinct classes of people and wealth, particularly Emperors and Royalty. Having all of the wealth tied up by an Emperor can certainly make the common people want to be able to share in that wealth.
According to Lucy, the initial model for communism did not last long, it just did not work. Everyone can’t be equal because not everyone wants to work equally hard for the equally shared benefits. It was not long before this system evolved into the system in place today, there is much more flexibility for people to make more money and have more if they work harder. China is much more capitalistic than we knew, at least in the economic arena.
It was also interesting to her that many of the traditional practices from the old days were no longer in place after communism was instituted, one of them being the feet binding and arranged marriages. These were no longer acceptable or allowed once communism took over.
We discussed a lot of other aspects of life in both the USA and here in China and a lot of things specific to Beijing. Many of the restrictions in place in Beijing are due to the amount of people living here, which is 22 million. The land area of Beijing is less than that of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, but with a lot more people. It was surprising to learn the Beijing is the second largest city, and Shanghai is even larger at 30 million.
We turned off of the main highway and headed through a large farming area. They grow a lot of corn, peaches, chestnuts and watermelon in this area, and there were many roadside stands selling fresh items that were still in season.
We finally arrived at the Great Wall in Mutianyu and were able to drive past the normal parking area and get much closer to the ticket area by private tour. Everyone who drives here and is not part of a tour has to park and take a shuttle bus up the mountain to the ticket office. Our driver dropped us off and we still had a little walk uphill to get to the ticket office, but it was not far, maybe a few blocks. It had been a long drive, so the first item if business was a restroom. There were not very many people here yet, so there were no lines for the bathrooms. About the time we finished with the restroom, two shuttle bus loads of people arrived, and it instantly was crowded.
There are three ways to get to the top of the wall, which is up on the top of the mountain ridge, walk up on a trail, take the gondola, or ride the chair lift. We had told Lucy we wanted to take the chair lift up, Stephanie had read it was more scenic and better for photos. There are also options for getting back down if you ride up, the gondola or the toboggan, and we had told her we wanted to take the toboggan ride down. The tickets are set based on the methods chosen for getting up and down.
Lucy got our tickets and we all got into the line for the chair lift. It is exactly like a ski lift, we had to go out and stand on a designated spot, and the chair came around and we sat down, it was a little tricky because you had to get your feet off the ground quickly, there was nothing like skies to slide along while you sat down. Stephanie and I rode together and Lucy took the next chair behind us.
There were some great views of the mountains and sections of the wall in the far distance on the mountain ridges. We could also see several towers off in the distance on parts of the wall that are not restored. The chair lift ride was about 7-8 minutes long and then we had to get off, which was also more tricky than on snow skies, we had to step onto the ground and run away from the chair while it continued on to make the turn.
Once we were off the chair, we headed up some steps to the top of the wall. There are 20 towers in this restored section of the wall. We headed off to the right and it was amazing to see how steep some sections of the top of the wall were. The steps were all different heights, some not too tall, and some very tall, and it was hard to walk in some areas. Of course, the steps had to match the contour of the hilltop, if it was steep, the steps were steep and quite tall between each step, and of course, if it was flatter, the steps were not tall. There were just a few sections where it was sloped bricks to walk on without any steps.
We saw several items along the wall section that we walked, there was a guardhouse, and also a gate through the wall that had been added long ago after China was united with Mongolia. In the original wall, there were only access gates on the Chinese side, there were no gates or openings on the Mongol side, which would have been a weak point in the wall, which was only there to keep the Mongols out of China.
We were trying to head to the end of this section of the restored wall. The steps got really high and steep at one point, and I made the call that I would not go forward from here. Stephanie and Lucy kept going, but I was concerned about getting down the steep steps with the bursitis in my hip, going down steps is the worst for it. I just sat in the shade on a rampart opening in the wall while they continued onward.
They were gone for about 20 minutes and returned. They had not gone all the way to the end, it was even steeper than this part. We all headed back toward the area where the chair lift was located. It was a lot of downhill getting to this point and now it was all uphill. It would take a lot of energy to walk the entire wall sections here. It was amazing because the gondola was on the other end of this section of the restored wall, and it would have taken a lot of energy and time to get there. We did not know which section of the wall was better to see, the part here or the sections by the gondola, maybe it did not matter once you saw as much as we had already. By then, it would just be for the accomplishment of walking the entire length, I doubt you would see much more, it all looks the same.
We did not have to go as far as the chair lift to get to the Toboggan. There was a line that took about 10 minutes to get through, but it was fun to see how people got onto the toboggan sleds. These are wheeled toboggan sleds and the only control is a brake, which is operated by a vertical control stick between your legs, pushing forward releases the brake, and pulling back activates the brake. The toboggan “track” itself was a stainless half pipe, and the brakes just rubbed under the cart on the metal surface of the track.
We finally got to the loading point and Stephanie got onto her sled first, then me, and then Lucy. They moved a special cart for me to board since I was larger, apparently, I needed a larger sled. There was only a subtle difference in size, but some adults ride down with children in front of them and that also takes the larger sled.
There was a line of about 10 loaded sleds at any one time, and we all proceeded slowly to the starting person who held a flag down on the track to stop people there. He waited for the previously released sled to go a certain distance, and then he let the next one go. It was our turn to start, and Stephanie headed down first. It was fun, but in order for my sled to go faster, I had to actually push my stick forward through some resistance, and that seemed to fully lift the braking pads. You could get going pretty fast, but unfortunately, it did not take long for Stephanie to catch up to the person in front of her. There was a couple who started before us, and the man was ahead of the lady in front of Stephanie. He would just not go fast at all, and was also tying to take pictures and videos of the lady behind him. I do not know if there was an issue with his sled, or if he just did not realize he was going so slow, or was scared.
Stephanie was right behind the lady for most of the time, and I had to slow down more than I wanted to stay back a safe distance from Stephanie. Of course, there was no one in front of the man, they had all gone down faster. It was a little annoying, but at times, we were able to go faster, but not as fast as I wanted to go to make it a thrilling and fun experience.
We reached the end of the line and got off the sleds. We walked down the hill a little ways and stopped off at the restroom, and then walked some more before we arrived at our car. Next was a drive back through the same farming area to a spot we were stopping for a lunch buffet. Also at this spot was a jade carving facility and jade store, it was underneath the lunch restaurant. Lucy asked if we wanted a tour of the jade shop and we said yes. She found a person who could speak English and he told us all about the jade, and the various carved pieces and what they represented. There were some balls with holes in them that had several smaller balls inside, all carved from a solid piece of jade. It was amazing. There was a man inside doing some jade work with a powered tool similar to a Dremel.
We then went into the store and he told us about the jade lions and several other figures. The pieces were nice, but seemed a little pricey. Stephanie looked a lot of pieces with the man and also looked at some jade vases, and she found one she really liked. It was heavy about 3 kg, and was about $600.00. It was not that large, but it was solid and only had a small hole in the center, so it was heavy, too heavy to get home in our luggage and to heavy to tote with us the entire time we still had on the trip.
We headed upstairs to the restaurant. There was a large buffet set up, and many of the items were similar to Chinese Food we get at home, and some were not. We tried a few different things, but in the end, we mostly ate things we were familiar with. The buffet was good, but the food was not very warm.
We finished eating and then used the restrooms before the long drive back into the city. The next stop was the Olympic Village. We had some extra time before the acrobat show, so Lucy took us to see the stadium from the opening ceremony. the stadium is affectionately called “The Birds Nest” because of its shape. There were two Olympics held in Beijing, the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2022 Winter Olympics. There were two very tall Olympic torches, one for each Olympics held here. We also walked past the building that was used for swimming in the summer Olympics, and for ice skating in the winter Olympics. It was amazing to see how wide open the space was here, there was one long and wide open pathway that led from a bell tower in the city to the torches.
We did not spend a long time there and only looked at the buildings from the outside, it took tickets to actually enter these facilities.
We met back up with our driver and then headed a short distance to the Acrobat show. It was held in a tent, similar to a circus tent. We went inside and took our seats. There was a large group of high school-aged kids there in the front most seats, they seemed to be from South America, but we were not sure. We were sure they were not from China, they did not look Asian at all.
The show started about 20 minutes after we were seated. There was a center seat section where we were, and then two sections on the sides. Most people were in the center sections, but a couple of tour groups arrived as the show was starting and they were seated on the sides.
The show was really good, there were several “acts” some with men, some with women and some with both together. We will add some detail later, and maybe a video or two. One of the most amazing things was the last show, with the motorcycles inside of the sphere made of metal grating, about 25 feet in diameter. First, there was one in the sphere, then two and eventually five motorcycles inside together riding around together in circles at all different angles.
That was the last act and so we headed outside to meet up with Lucy. The next stop was the Summer Palace. It did not take long to get there and then we headed inside the grounds.
It was a little cloudy, mostly a haze, and it was already pretty late in the day, about 5:30 PM, so there was not a lot of sun for pictures, which was a little disappointing. We walked around the grounds and Lucy gave us a history of the Summer Palace. It was pretty amazing to see. It was located next to a large lake and there were boats out on the lake.
We were there for about two hours, and by the time we walked through to the other end, it was getting dark.
The next stop was our hotel, a thirty-minute drive away. It was interesting to pass through some areas as we drove and to see all of the lighting on the buildings and signs.
We arrived back at the hotel and bid farewell to Lucy and our driver, giving them a small tip to thank them for a wonderful day.
Once we went into the hotel, we ran into Itziar in the lobby and chatted with her for a while. She had some gifts for us, and we were surprised and thankful for them. Stephanie had also brought some items on the trip to give out as gifts, so we went upstairs to get one to exchange. Itziria was not going to be working for the next two days, so that was why we needed to exchange gifts tonight and say our goodbyes, we were leaving before she got back to work on Friday.
We were too tired to go out for dinner, so we just ate in the room, having some of the bagels and cream cheese we had bought for breakfast.
I tried to work on the blog a little, we are almost catching up, but I was just too tired to make it very far, and succumbed to sleep at about 10;00 PM.
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