As a part of the hotel deal, we got three free breakfasts, one per night we stayed there. We went to the coffee shop down the block to redeem our coupons and were told to help ourselves to the breakfast buffet. There were eggs, bacon, sausage, congee, breads, sandwiches, fruits and various drinks. The breakfast was good, since it was free, I probably wouldn’t pay out of pocket for it. We ate quickly and headed out for the day.
There are three sections of the Great Wall near Beijing open to the public, Simatai, Badaling and Mutianyu. Badaling is the most crowded as probably a hundred public buses go there each day and it is the easiest to walk. Simatai is supposed to be hardest to walk and the most run down. Mutianyu is supposed to be in the middle. Additionally, Mutianyu has a toboggan ride down, which I figured would be fun for the kids, so that is where we were headed.
We went to the bus terminal for Badaling, figuring that we could find a taxi there. My research told me that I should expect to pay around 600RMB ($90 US) for a taxi to take us there. We got to the bus area and there were tons of taxis standing there. Most of them did not want to go to Mutianyu, as it is further from Beijing than Badaling. One driver finally agreed to take us for 500RMB ($75 US). The ride there took about one hour.
The driver parked in a lot near the ticket office. We walked over to the ticket counter and there were two sets of windows, the ones on the left sold tickets for the cable car (one-way and roundtrip), this would take us to tower 14 of this section of the wall. The windows on the right sold tickets for the ski-lift and the toboggan which are located at tower 6. My mom is afraid of heights, so we bought me and Kathy one-way tickets on the cable car and my mom a roundtrip ticket, we also bought the two of us trips down on the toboggan. The kids were still free! We walked up a hill to get to the cable car and along the way, there were dozens of stalls selling various souvenirs. We got to the cable car area and found a spot for my mom to wait later. We had a breathtaking view of the mountains on the way up and about ¾ of the way up, we could see the towers of the wall. We got to the top and while we were taking pictures, Chubba spotted some sort of animal in the trees, we think it was a donkey, since we could only see the back.
We walked up to the tower and there were two ways to go, up to Towers 15-20 or down to Towers 13-6. My mom took some pictures with us and headed back down for her ride on the cable car. The four of us started our hike to Tower 6. I had the kids walking the whole way with the promise of an imitation ripstik at the end of our trip. The walk was not really bad, it was fairly warm, but there were a lot of stairs and some were steeper than others. The view was breathtaking at most of the locations.
The hike to Tower 6 took us over an hour. When we got there, we were given quick instructions on the toboggans (think the Alpine Slide at Action Park (is Action Park still there?)). Chubba was going to ride with me and Izz was going to ride with Kathy, Izz wanted to control the thing all the way (ie, no braking). The ride down took less than 5 minutes and it was a lot of fun. There were a couple of dips and some nice turns. Izz says that this was her favorite part of the trip.
After returning to the bottom, I went back to find my mother, but was told that the ticket I bought was only good for one admission into the area. So, I went back down to find the kids and Kathy, so she could call my mom. As we were waiting for my mom to show up, we were approached my numerous vendors trying to hawk their wares. One lady approached me with a bunch of T-shirts and told me that they were 10RMB ($1.50 US) each. I looked through her shirts and the kids each picked a shirt. We were then told that she would sell them to me for 400RMB ($60 US). Huh? Apparently, her argument was that these shirts were 100% cotton and the one she showed me in the beginning was Polyester, everyone else is selling the shirts for 285 RMB ($43 US) each (yeah, right). We started to walk away and the prices she was offering started getting lower and lower. Kathy then said 100RMB) $15 US for the four shirts. Her price continued to go down, while we held steady. Finally, she agreed to the 100RMB.
We got back to the taxi and he agreed to take us to the Summer Palace, which is located northwest of the Beijing proper. We drove along for a while and then the driver pulled along side of the road to inquire which direction we should go. We were then informed that this was the first time he had been to Mutianyu. We got side tracked for about half an hour and then had the hour ride to the Summer Palace.
The Summer Palace was built by the emperor QianLong for his mother. This place is currently a park, where one can fly kites, ride on boats and just spend hours upon hours walking around. A temple built is located on the grounds and was used as a private place of worship by the Dowager Empress CiXi during the Qing Dynasty. The first thing we did when we arrived at the park was take a boat ride across the pond. The boat looked like something out of an old movie, with a dragon head. After the short boat ride where we saw people flying kites and rowing or peddling their own boats, we came to a dock. We walked down the “Long Corridor”, which was build so that the CiXi did not have to endure the sun and rain and could always walk under cover. After the walk, we decided that we were quite hungry, since we didn’t eat lunch that day, so we headed out of the park to go for a Peking Duck dinner!
We caught a taxi outside of the Summer Palace, and after riding for about 10 minutes, we hid mad traffic. I started looking at a map and saw that we were right next to a subway stop. So, we got out of the taxi which had not moved at all and went to the subway. The subway cost 2RMB (30¢ US) and it is per ride, no matter how far you go, similar to the New York City Subway. The subway was crowded, but people gladly gave up their seats to the elderly and to people with children. After the ride, we came back above ground at Qian Men, which is the front door of the Forbidden City.
We walked over to QuanJuDe, which is the original Peking Duck house. The Qian Men store is the original store, which started in the 1800s and the oven used to cook the ducks have been running since. There are now numerous QuanJeDe stores in Beijing and even in other cities. We got there at 6:00 and were told that there would be a one hour wait. We waited outside for a bit, then headed inside, where they were calling number 82, we were number 141. As we waited, we watch the chefs expertly cook the ducks in the ovens. I was drooling as they were cooking. After the close to one hour wait, we were finally called. We ordered a whole duck with all the fixings, a dish of veggies and a couple of bowls of rice. The duck came quickly and was expertly sliced in front of us. We asked for the carcass, so that we can finish the meat off the bones, since only a small part of the meat is served for a peking duck. We gobbled down all our food, The duck was excellent, the meat was juicy, the skin was crispy and it was so tasty.
While at QuanJuDe, I got another taste of old meets new. Toilets in China have historically been holes in the ground. One would squat over the hole to relief themselves. These squat toilets are still preferred by most people in china, with “western toilets” starting to become a bit more popular. At QuanJuDe, I found automatic squat toilets!!! I was totally speechless.