The Wall

• Breakfast: similar to the morning before, but there was beef sausage and I tried the rice porridge (apparently people here think it's really good, but I though it was meh).
• I got a little more adventurous and got something called Natto. I had no idea what it was, but as soon as I opened the package I felt like I wanted to throw up. NEVER OPEN A PACKAGE OF NATTO. How on earth can anyone stand this? It looks like black eyed peas in a sticky syrup, and smells like it's been rotting for awhile (no wonder the packages were sealed!). I still forced myself to try one bean just in case the smell was misleading. Nope. Even thinking about that smell right now is making me feel queasy. Very disgusting. I asked Sony about it and he said he's never heard of it before.
• Met Sony in the lobby at 8:30. Somehow i managed to come down without my jacket, so I'm glad he pointed that out and sent me back up to grab it.
• The drive to the Badaling Section of the Great Wall (the most popular because of the view you can get), was about 2 hours.
• Halfway, we stopped to "give the driver a break," but very much like the drive to Halong Bay, I was left in a gift shop with a staff member that spoke English. This place was a jade shop, and Sony kept telling me I needed jade to give me good luck. The salesperson actually wasn't as pushy, and when I told her no she said "that's ok."
• Apart from feeling like I was being hassled (more by Sony than the salesperson...), I actually thought the presentation was pretty cool. There were 2 workers carving some jade with a whetstone, and they were making these spheres with smaller spheres inside. Basically you drill holes in, then cut into the sides of the holes to section off layers so the inner spheres are cut loose from the outer ones (but are too big to fit through the holes). Then she showed me different types of jade (there are several colors! White, green, yellow, and orange, but jadeite is the fanciest one because it starts white and changes to green over time). Lastly she showed me how to tell the difference between glass that looks like jade and actual jade - actual jade doesn't scratch on a hard glass surface, and when you hold it to the light you can see cloudy light coming through.
• Got back in the car and drive another hour to The Wall.
• When we got there, there were a bunch of people, but not an uncomfortable amount (which I understand is the norm for summertime). A sign said that the daily visitor limit enforced for the preservation of the wall is 108,000 per day. Sometimes they sell out. Wow.
• From the entrance there are 2 options: north(ish) side or south(ish) side. Sony recommended the south side, because the view is with the sun at your back in the morning. He walked about halfway up with me and was out of breath. He told me he's been here many times and I should go do the rest alone, so up I went.
• It got really steep right after I left Sony. Just in case there are any misconceptions about the wall, there is nothing 'flat' about it! This is a wall that was built to snake up and over and down the tops of mountains!
• I took several pictures along the way, and walked as far as I was allowed to go (the 7th tower from the starting point). Sony said that if we had chosen the other way, I would've had to walk over 20km to find the edge of the public part.
• The other side went up higher than the one I was on, but I think that made for a nice picture too. The south side was less popular for this reason (there's also a cable-car option for the north side), so the crowds weren't bad at all.
• When you get to the highest peak on the south end, a man pops up and offers to carve your name on a commemorative metal plate. It sounded like he had no Chinese accent, but I quickly found out that he only knew how to say "hello! Congratulations, you made it! I will carve your name here for you."
•  I took my time to snap some photos and take in the view, then head back down to meet Sony. On the way back I stopped at the WC, which was a hole in the ground.
• Met back up with Sony and we walked down I asked a bunch of questions as we walked.
• Construction of the wall was drawn out over several Chinese dynasties. The Chin one began work on it to protect China from the Mongolian raiders. Mongolians were tall and rode horses, so the wall was built to let the Chinese shoot arrows and cannons down on them as they ran up the mountain. Remember how the Huns threw spikes on ropes up on the wall to scale it? Yep, that's how it happened. Lighting the beacon? Not quite. They did have beacons (built separate from but close to the wall), but Sony said it would be to hazardous to light a flame so instead they would fire a cannon 1-3 times depending on how large the size of the invading forces were. If they made it up the wall, the Chinese soldiers in the towers would go to the second floor and pull the ladder up. Others would run down the escape hatches to the China-side and fire at the Mongols on the wall (the side facing China was built much shorter than the one facing enemy territory.
• Today, about 2-3 layers of the brick wall remain original (stuck together with egg whites and sticky rice), but the top part was rebuilt in the 1980s. The floors are original, and so many people died in the construction of the wall (no animals were used to lug all that stone up the mountains), that they just started throwing their bodies into the partially constructed wall. Basically it's a huuuuuuuuge grave.
• We walked out and to the restaurant, which was about 60-seconds walk away from the entrance. Apparently it's normally a buffet, but since this isn't the peak season they made our lunch separately. It was duck+bell pepper+onion, fried rice+Chinese scrambled eggs, rice, leeks, a carrot/cucumber/egg soup, and jasmine tea
• Got in the car and went to the Ming Tombs, which is a complex of 13 tombs. We only saw the main one (changling) because the coolest one (dingling, which was underground for 600 years).
• Here's some family drama for the Mings: a dude named Zhu Yuangzhang came from a really poor family (everyone else had died from starvation) joined a Buddhist temple. Over time, he gained enough strength to practice martial arts and eventually joined the army so he could eat better and start thinking about a family. He became really popular among his comrades and was elected up and up the chain of command. When there was enough angst about the Chin royalty not being the same people as the commoners, this guy led the revolution and upon winning became the first emporer of the Ming Dynasty. He moved the capital from Xi'an to Nanjing, and as is customary for Chinese emperors, had many children with many concubines. Following custom, the sons were assigned to different areas of China to be provincial governors, and the first-born was to be the next emperor. Unfortunately, he died at the age of 6, but instead of making the second-oldest emperor, the succession has to move to the next generation (first grandson). This grandson's name was Jianwen. Zhu Yuangzhang's second and third sons were fine with this transition (or not upset enough to rock the boat), but the fourth (Yongle) was not happy. He was the provential governor of the Beijing area, and when his nephew started to remove some powers of the provential governors, he took what troops he had and marched down to Nanjing to overthrow the emperor. Jianwen disappeared shortly after and wasn't found again (some think he committed suicide, others think he joined a Monastary). Yongle moved the capital to Beijing and built all the Royal things (forbidden city, Tiananmen Square, summer palace, and the Ming tombs. He also made it a priority to continue expanding the Great Wall, because he knew how important Beijing was to the country).
• SO, there's a big statue of Yongle in the middle of the big building of Changling (his tomb), which now has a bunch of artifacts from the tombs (clothes, crowns, lots of hairpins, and some old money). Changling has 2 main buildings and a gate, set up to be similar to the forbidden city so that he can continue his emperor duties in the afterlife. But replace the changing room with a structure build over the gravestone and the living quarters with a big hill covered with trees (in which he is buried). Archaeologists still haven't unsealed Yongle's tomb because when they excavated dingling the air destroyed so many of the ancient objects.
• As we left the tomb, Sony asked if I liked the tomb (he always asks this as we leave places, and says thank you if I say yes). To be honest, changling itself was a little underwhelming since the focal point was a big hill (not like a mountain or anything, just some land with trees that has a gradual slope. You can't see the top because of the trees), so I told him and he said "oh, then I will buy you a gift." Huh? He ran over to a little cart and bought me a coin from The Ming dynasty (not like what we saw in the museum, which was gold & silver ingot used by the royalty).
• Before we made it to the car, Sony told me that it is customary in China for me to give him and the driver tips in envelopes. He says they get very low salaries and his family depends on this so someday he can send his son to get a better education. Ok dude, you don't need to get sappy. I know what you want)
• We drove about 2 hours back to the hotel (the driver didn't need a break going this direction...?)
• Got s couple envelopes from the front desk and came up to the room to write these bullets.
• Now it's time to figure out how much I'm supposed to tip, and get all packed up so I can make it to breakfast at 5am. Sony and Jong are coming to get me at 6am to take me to the airport.