Great Peking

September 17th--Today was our big day to head to the Great Wall. Instead of doing it by ourselves or with a big tour group, we got our own private guide through our apartment. We were met at the apartment by our guide at 9:30am. She escorted us to our passenger van where we were greeted by the driver. We loaded up and off we went for our hour drive to the wall. It was the typical Beijing traffic of a lot of honking, swerving and slamming on the breaks, but we safely made it to our first stop. Our first stop was a Cloisonne factory. Now, as we pulled into the parking lot, I thought "this is why I hate tours". I thought we were going to be put into some high pressure sales shop to buy some junk. Well, we were pleasantly surprised otherwise. We entered the store and were greeted by a nice lady who became our personal tour guide. She explained to us the process of making Cloisonne and walked us through the various stages of the traditional Chinese art being made. (Honestly, I didn't even know what it was when we entered). Cloisonne is the ornamental vases and jewelery that you have seen that looks like some kind of mosaic ceramic. It is actually copper that is molded and then filled with enamel to give it its unique color and look. Anyway, you can see the pictures in our album, but suffice it to say it was a neat process to see up close and personal. Of course we ended up in a "showroom" with things to buy, but interestingly no one was pressuring us to buy anything. However, we actually surprisingly found a Cloisonne Santa Claus so Amy was able to complete her China Santa purchase. After our purchase, we loaded back up in the van and headed off to the Great Wall. We had made the decision to visit the Mutianyu section of the wall. It is said to be a slightly steeper section, but with much less tourists and more beautiful scenery. This sounded great to us! We arrived and parked at the bottom of the hill. We walked up the hill (through a gauntlet of people selling / pushing stuff) and made it to a cable car. The cable car would take us up the remainder of the way to the wall. Once we arrived on the top of the wall, we stopped for a moment as our guide gave us a brief introduction. From here, we were off to walk the wall. First, we were amazed at how big/grand the wall structure is. When you realize that it is along a mountain ridge, it is amazing to think how they got the materials up to build the wall (I mean, we took a cable car up!). Second, we were amazed at how steep it was between sections. It was hazy/overcast again today (although our tour guide kept calling it fog and we wanted to inform her that it was "smog"; but as far as we know that's what she knows it as), but the humidity was pretty high so walking between the sections was a little tiring (for everyone except Austin who ran everywhere). Finally, you are taken by the length of the wall. When we first arrived on top of the wall, I remember looking at a section off in the distance thinking we would make it there and then turn around. After walking for close to 30 minutes, we were no where close to that section and I realized it was much further than it looked! We decided to turn around because we knew however far we got away, we had to walk that far back. We didn't want to have a kid (or adult) meltdown on the wall. So, we walked/hiked the wall for about an hour, all in all. It was really great because there weren't very many other people out today. In fact, at times, we had entire sections to ourselves. It was really nice to be able to experience the wall without being rushed by others wanting to take pictures of our children. We made it back to the cable car and then back down to the parking lot. We stopped off at KFC (our first in China) for a quick lunch on our way back to the apartment. Once we arrived back we took the kids to the playground to continue to burn off any energy they had. Amy and I took turns going to a nearby spa for foot messages. We were able to get 1 hour foot messages for $10! They were great. The only thing that was a little odd, but turned out great was a cupping technique. Cupping is where they take glass jars, stick fire in them and then place the open end on your foot, which forms a suction on the bottom of your feet. Although I was a little alarmed when I saw a flame close to my feet, the process felt wonderful. Once we finished up, we went back to the apartment to clean up before heading out to dinner. Our guide had recommended a great restaurant nearby our apartment for Peking Duck. No trip to Beijing would be complete without Peking Duck, so we decided this was a must to try. We walked to the restaurant and were seated at a large table. They brought us the "picture menu" and I pointed to the duck. We also ordered some appetizers before the duck. We entertained ourselves with eating our appetizers with chopsticks while waiting on our main course. Finally, they brought out our duck on a cart. The waiter carved it up (which was a show in itself) and then another waiter showed us the proper way to eat it. He took very thin pancakes (think tortillas) and put sweet noodle sauce on it. He then placed the strips of carved duck inside and served it like a fajita. Of course, he did the entire process with chopsticks but we had to do some of it with our hands. It was wonderful! We thoroughly enjoyed our Peking duck dinner! Today was a great day climbing the Great Wall, getting awesome, cheap foot messages and then finishing off with a wonderful Peking Duck dinner.