Day 7 - Great Wall & Ming Tombs

Today started out like every other day - an odd breakfast of fried noodles, dried kiwi wedges, larb, and pastries. A classic American breakfast. After detoxing, we headed to the lobby to meet, "Tina", our Chinese English speaking tour guide for the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. Ashley stole 3 more bottles of water from the maid and we were off to northeastern China.

Our driver, the honorable "Mr. Lee", smoothly navigated us through 24 near head-on collisions, 16 pedestrian killings and 11 rear-endings. All the while he insisted on using the horn..guess Mr. Lee always has the right of way.

2 hours later we were at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It is a little less touristy than Badaling, the most visited section of the Great Wall from Beijing so we had some pretty cool, non-populated views of the wall.

We took a quick cable car up a good ways (same car President Clinton took in 1998), and started our trek. We were presented the option of walking to the top of Mutianyu, which was ~3 KM from where the cable car dropped us off. We decided to trek it - after all, we're at the Great Wall of China! About 1.8 KM into the trek, we regretted it slightly. It was very steep and riddled with steps designed for small Chinese feet. Not ogre like American feet. Nonetheless, we persevered and made it to the top of Mutianyu. Unbelievably beautiful; the Wall surrounded by gorgeous mountains. And we couldn't have asked for a better day.

After hanging out on top and catching our breath for a little while, we trekked back down to meet the tour bus. We left the wall and headed to a Jade factory that is controlled by the government. We had no say in this and knew about it ahead of time, so we just took it in stride. We had a similar experience in Bangkok earlier this year, but at least this time we knew about it in advance and it was far less shady.


After walking around the Jade factory and oohing and aahing over jade we were presented lunch in the back of the factory. Family style chicken, rice, pork, fish, vegetables and other items we're not sure their origin. It wasn't the best lunch we've had in China. We tried to fill up on rice.

Next up were the Ming Tombs - or portion of the Ming tombs. We walked there for a while and honestly weren't that impressed. Maybe it was just the section we were in, but we had more fun taking silly photos of each other :).


After the Ming tombs we headed to a government run Medical facility. Historically, we all know that Eastern medicine is heavy in herbs, acupuncture, etc and this tour was intended to 'educate' westerners on the importance of Eastern medicine. They herd us all into a medical room and we are presented with some basic information on acupuncture then introduced to a Chinese doctor who can diagnose your ailments within seconds of feeling your pulse. Fascinating. One of our tour group members was examined by the good doctor and told he had a fatty liver, stop drinking beer, lose weight and get in shape. All within a few moments of feeling his pulse. The gentlemen has had Multiple Sclerosis for years now. Interesting the good Chinese doctor didn't diagnose that...

After the medical facility tour we were dropped off at our hotel. Starving, we headed back across the street for Hot Pot, round 2. Beef, noodles and vegetables - yummy.

Pretty tired from our excursion today we're calling it an early night. Off to the Silk Market in the morning, Peking Duck for lunch then a 12 hour train ride to Shanghai tomorrow night!