Addison

When we were in Beijing we went to the Great wall of China like all the other tourists do. We went to Mutianyu because it wasn't as famous as Badaling, so there weren't as many people.

First, we got tricked into buying the more expensive tickets (the CD Rom type) and we didn't buy enough tickets so it took forever to get all of us through! Then, on the way to the cable car station (yes we were a bit wimpy by taking the cable car up) we got called banana, T-shirts and all the products that the people were selling. They said stuff like "Hello, Banana, Hello." "Hello, T-shirt, Hello". I had a feeling that they didn't really know what they were saying but at least they were attempting to sell their products by speaking a different language. I also reasoned that they probably learned it for the Olympics and all the English speakers coming to Beijing. We were funneled through the famous Great Wall Tourist Trap that all foreigners have to walk through, hoping not to get hooked on something that would sell for at least 3 times its actual price.

Finally, we made it through without buying anything and rode the cable car up. We walked down the wall and laughed and got lemonade all over ourselves (accidentally). We explored and did an experiment. The experiment included Coleman, Mom, a Snickers bar, and the vendors selling snacks along the wall. There vendors but they all wanted 10 yuan (we normally pay 3.5 yuan) for a single snickers bar. Mom thought that it was because dad was there with so many children. When we got to the next one, she went up to the vendor and got the same answer. Next, she told Coleman if he could get a vendor to sell him a snickers for 5 yuan, he could keep it (Saylor declined the offer), but couldn't just keep the cash. Coleman was determined that he would get candy, and mom forgot that the vendor would try to sell him something else for 5 yuan. Mom stopped him right as the vendor was handing Coleman agreed to take the Chinese made candy bar. They lowered their price to 8 yuan, but Coleman had to walk away.

on the way down, we went down one of those paths to the bottom we saw many kids crying because they wanted to go down the slide that you could take to the bottom. We walked past quietly and looked at the slide longingly but we didn't say anything. It did look fun.

Overall, it was fun, and we had a great time.

Marcie's notes: Addison was a little apprehensive about climbing the wall because she has studied the history and knows that many people died building the wall. I also found humor in the fact that I received a text message from my cell phone company, wishing me a happy May 1st Holiday while climbing down the wall. I'm not sure what surprised me more: getting the message in such a historic and remote site, being able to access it on my cell phone, or being able to read it in Chinese! The area was absolutely beautiful, but we're told it is even more breathtaking in the fall when the leaves are red!