I AM SAM AM China - Part 29 - Day 22 - Beijing /Great Wall

After a restless night (with a 5am wake up call from Ant using the bathroom) – we hopped up at 7am, got our sh## 2geithar and headed for Holiland for breakfast at Dongzhimen station. Surprisingly – there were some fresh croissants (bonus) and sort of western style danishes with sultanas (double bonus – I was getting sick of buying things which I thought had sultanas – only to find that they are those stewpid black bean things). As Ant would say – “Everything is coming up Milhouse!”

We were on another “Terracotta Warrior” style mission today – to get to the Great Wall of China. But to throw in some spice and danger – we were going to take the Beijing Public Bus System…

According to the “Insider’s Guide to Beijing” – there was a #916 bus from Dongzhimen station to catch – then you get off at the “Haiuru International Conference Centre” (no idea where the hell this is!) – then catch a mini bus to the Mutianyu Great Wall site… Easy…!

After stumbling around the Dongzhimen area – we finally discovered the Dongzhimen bus station and a 916 waiting – smelling our fear. We hopped on – armed with a piece of paper with some Mandrian (via Dan) saying “Please take me to the Haiuru International Conference Centre!”. The conducted understood the piece of paper – and charged Ant 11 yuan each.

After about an hour and a half of travelling – the bus driver and conducted shouted at us to get off… We hopped off the bus – and there was no “Haiuru International Conference Centre” in sight. In sight, however, was a tout saying “you want ride to Mutianyu??!”. Not seeing any mini-buses in sight – Ant asked him “how much?”. He responded saying 30 yuan per person one way…which wasn’t bad considering the book said that the mini-bus rate was 25-30yuan per person.

We agreed with him – and he whisked us away in his private car. In that Chinese taxi driver tradition – he loved to play “2 Unlimited” on high rotation. Ant and I suffered whilst he played a 14 minute version of “No Limit”. He probably took the song a bit too literally when it came to his driving skills (or lack thereof).

When we arrived at Mutianyu – he said that he didn’t mind waiting for us for (4) hours so he could take us back to Haiuru – and refused our money. We would pay him when we returned (how trusting…! Mwwhhahahaha!).

He guided us to the ticket office to the Great Wall – where we faced the dilemma of buying a ticket on the gondola or the chairlift plus toboggan ride pass… The chairlift looked a little dodgy – but the gondola looked a bit less dodgier – so we went with the gondola. 160 yuan later – Ant and I walked away with a “Great Wall VCD Ticket” and a Gondola Ticket…($25ishAUD)

Going up the gondola – we both discovered that the Great Wall today was absolutely devoid of any tourists. There were hardly any gondolas on the track and no tourists on the wall in sight. Yes!

Avoiding the people selling chocolates, coke and beer (that time old beverage – suitable for energetic outdoor hiking) – we made our way to the left hand side of the wall from the top of the gondola. Although the Mutianyu area of the wall is restored (most in the 80’s) – it is nonetheless spectacular and a must-do tourist attraction. The left hand side of the wall was a little more “rustic” than the “brand spanking new” section to the right of the gondola.

Because of the snow everywhere – we had the added excitement of “trying not to slip and crack our heads open on the ice” fun. An aussie mum and daughter (both wearing matching knee high boots) – both gave up not so far away from the chairlift. Soft~!

After going up a huge wonky set of stairs – we made it to the end of the touristic bit of the wall. Apart from the sort of funny looking local guy – we were the only people in sight. The funny looking dude offered us to take our picture – which we did… Ant sort of felt obliged to pay – so he gave him about 2 yuan ($0.35AUD) – hey big spender!

We regained our breath – then headed back the way we came (which was a lot easier than going up the wall). The views were incredible – very rugged hill sides – laced with snow… did I mention a complete lack of tourists??!

We couldn’t help but notice all the idiot graffiti artists all over the wall. Luckily – the majority of them have only used chalk instead of magic markers… One idiot wrote “SAM” in really big letters. Ant and I thought that this guy “SAM” is a grade a fuc#tard (our favourite word)!

After reaching the top of the gondola – we decided that we would keep going along the wall until the top other side of the touristic wall. We were keeping a pretty good pace – but a British couple came speeding up from nowhere behind us. Maybe someone should have told them to “not speed in icy conditions” – as the woman fell flat on her face. I sniggered and quietly said to Ant “The Great Fall of China – heh heh heh…” I’m so klassy with a “k”.

Still feeling not too crash hot – I called it quits at the top of the other chairlift/toboggan ride. Ant was feeling semi adventurous and wanted to try out the toboggan. There was basically a toboggan track (a la Corin Forrest / Thredbo) right down to the bottom of the mountain – the klassiest way of getting down to the bottom. I however – didn’t want to trust my life in the hands of Chinese Toboggan Engineers – and I refused to go down it… Although it did look very shonky – the English couple and a few other people managed to survive the toboggan ride down the hill.

Heading down the mountain via foot – there were heaps of chiglish signs everywhere. Signs stating that “President Klinton had visited” (I made up the “K” but for the rest of the trip down the mountain – I kept saying to Ant “Take me to Klinton” in an alien voice – he seemed to get the joke). There were some excellent “Notice to Visitor” chinglish signs including:
“Please don’t carve arbitrarily on the Great Wall. Protect one brick and one stone consciously” (yes – one brick and one stone only – f##k the rest) and
“Please walk carefully on abrupt slope and dangerous way; Don’t run and pushes to pash violently and the laugh and frolic” (but pashing violently is my favourite~!)…

There were all of these weird signs trying to get visitors to visit the “Stone Vllage” as it was “free” and “great” – but to us it felt like “tourist trap” – so we avoided the “Stone Vllage” like a violent pash rash.

At the bottom of the path – Ant was “shanghaied” again by a bunch of women selling him t-shirts. “One Dollar! One Dollar!” they began saying (which hooked Ant in – he can’t resist a t-shirt for one dollar even if they are hideously gross). When we arrived – the price seemed to magically rise up to 380 yuan each ($63 AUD). I wasn’t all that excited – but Ant managed to get himself trapped in the shop with the “One Dollar” woman blocking his exit. I tell Ant “I’m not paying more than $5 a shirt” – the woman attempts to say that these “are good quality. Cottin look cottin!”. She shows us a Nylon shirt which looks like it had been used to wipe clean a squat toilet – and then said “Look. Nylon. Bad. Nylon Bad!” I started saying to the woman “they are all polyester!” and started to walk away. As I must have been about 50 metres away from the shop – Ant yells out “NICK!” – he had reached a deal – 25 yuan each. Ant’s shirt had the added bonus of a family of cockroaches living it the t-shirt.

We walked back down to the car where Mr 2 Unlimited ran out – smelling of Chinese alcohol… “No no! No no no no! There’s no Blood Alcohol Limit!” We headed back to town – at breakneck speeds through the icy chicanes – and somehow managed to get back to town in one piece. He drops us off at a bus stop – and 2 seconds later – a 916 picks us both up. Unfortunately – we had mr “Slow Coach” driving us as we counted about half a dozen 916 buses overtaking us on our way back to Dongzhimen.

Back in town and the smog had suddenly turned real bad. Perhaps it has something to do with today not being a public holiday – or the fact that it was a wind-free day.

Back at Kip and Dan’s place – and Kip is still feeling like crap from her flu. I catch up on a bit of “Blind Date”, “5th Wheel” and a show called “Change of Heart” – where everyone looks like they were straight out of “Studs” back in the early nineties – however “Change of Heart” was made in 1997 – shame on those people… They were still wearing shoulder pads and frizzy “Billy Ray Cirrus” mullets – that late in the 90s.

I attempted to do some blogging – but you guessed it! – the Taiwanese earthquake was still pounding the internet into the stone age (thanks China Post for that quote – my favourite source of English Language Chinese Government Propaganda other than CCTV 9).

Kip served a bit of Peking Duck from the other night. Although a couple of days old – I still thought it tasted great. You get a bit of BBQ duck – dip it in some sauce, put it in a pancake with a bit of spring onion, sauce, watermelon (!) and some non-traditional lettuce – and you have yourself a tasty snack. Just need to avoid the skin as it is more fatty than one of Oprah’s thigh.

Dan, Ant and I head out to the “Yashion Markets” (not quite sure about the name – but I’m dubbing this place the “Yashion Markets”) – a 5 story complex full of “street vendors” selling “authentic Diesel” clothes, and stuff.

On our way there – we made a slight detour to go to a store stocking foreign brands for Ant. However on arrival – the shop clearly catered for the “Asian Nerd” look – and we quickly ran the hell out of there.

Now you might think this is weird – but my hairdresser in Canberra gave me $50 to go buy her daughter some knock off handbags. She gave me a list of name brands to look out for – but I think she was just rattling off anything she could think off (Gucci, D&G, Dior, Versace, Louie Verton, etc etc). So there was Dan, myself and Ant on a handbag mission for 15 minutes at Yashion Markets. I finally found a Dolce and Gabbana handbag which sort of looked OK – and haggled my way down for 55 yuan (just more than $9AUD). I also picked up a Versace bag for 40 yuan (the girl amazingly started at 50 yuan as the starting price). Ant got in the whole handbag craze and bought one as well (… for his mother).

After completing the basement – we headed for the next level – “genuine” Diesel shoes… Now – we have had really bad times trying to find shoes that fit in Asia before (I seem to remember searching with Ant for hours in Tokyo – trying to find some shoes that fit – only finding out that the biggest shoe sizes they had were about two too small for us). However – we did manage to find some shoes that sort of fit. Dan, being the local – had advised us what a good price for shoes is. Dan started to get a bit “chummy” with the old lady shopkeeper. One of the keepers (we were attracting a crowd) sort of admitted that only certain bits of the shoes were actual leather… When the old woman came back out – she told Dan that the whole shoe was leather… Dan and the younger woman had a laugh.

Things started to get a lot less chummy-ier when we started arguing over the price – I didn’t want to pay more than 100 yuan for each pair (both Ant and I wanted a pair each). But the woman wouldn’t budge from a semi-ridiculous price. This was all going on whilst the security guards were closing the whole centre down because it was now past 9pm. We kept arguing (making Dan feel a little uncomfortable – as he was quite chummy with the woman previously) – and the old lady started pulling the shutters down over the store. I wouldn’t back down from my price and grabbed Ant and headed up the escalators before we were trapped in the mall.

Half way up the escalators – the old lady runs up the escalators – screaming “Wait!! 200 yuan for the shoes…!”. We exchanged the cash – she handed over the “Tiger Pumas” and everyone was chummy again. It is sort of funny in China – you can be arch enemies whilst bartering – but at the end of the day – they are very happy to do business and get very friendly (not in a massage.. happy ending sort of way tho).

Another thing about bargaining in China – if you state a price – you are bound to buy it (otherwise it is really bad form). Sort of like the bad form of that woman trying to sell me the Saddam cards for 475 yuan, agreeing for 10 yuan then swapping the cards… I know where your store is bi##h!

After trying to find some “lamb on the stick” “hole in the wall” restaurant – only to discover that they only sell dumplings – we headed for Mc Donalds for a “smallish snack”. I had ordered a “Happy Meal” with a “Soccer Snoopy” doll which headbutts a ball. I was trying to get snoop to headbutt the ball into Ant’s coke….but to no avail.