China, Saturday, April 15, 2017

Second full day in China. Today is another very full day of fun filled visiting. Wake-up call is for 7. We get up, shower and go for breakfast. It's a later start; we are meeting Jack at the bus at 9:15. We are heading to the Great Wall today. We were really looking forward to it. The drive took about 1 hr before we started seeing the wall in the mountain. You could also see all of the people climbing and descending. It was amazing.

We had two routes to choose from to climb the Wall. On the left, the wall is pretty flat and very few stairs. On the right, where everyone chose to go, it's very steep, has many, many stairs, and is a longer distance to the top. A lot of the people who go to the right are not necessarily in shape therefore most people stop to take a breather, but the problem is that there is no place to stop. It causes a slow down for everyone behind them. It was frustrating as there were many thousands of people headed in the same direction, as some of the pictures show. Luckily not everyone continues all the way to the top, so the last third or more of the climb was people free. It was very nice. Coming down was the same. From the top we could go down freely and easily, more during the second half, oh man, it was congested.. I got lucky and found an opening, grabbed it and passed a large gang of kids and made it down in fairly good time without too much jostling. We ended up staying here for 2 hours. It took about 1h30 to go up and down, minimum. There were groups of kids there as it was Saturday so locals are there also.

  

Tons of students around.

Sharon and I on the top of the Wall.

Ron is the second orange shirt coming down. His size 12 foot makes it more challenging to descend.

That was a good workout and it was also quite warm.

Next stop is a "factory", a cloisonné factory. None of us are very excited about this type of material, but off we go as we have no choice. Luckily the tours is fairly quick and then we head upstairs for our typical lunch, with all of the other tourists.

It's about 2 pm when we head back to our hotel. We have an excursion tonight and are leaving at 4:30 so we'll have time to clean up and rest and be ready to go again in an hour and a half.
Tonight's excursion takes us to a very popular place for the Chinese people, the young, the families, and even some older citizens. Lots of peddlers selling kites, toys, and other souvenirs. It was a mini village around a lake so Ron, Rémi, Paul, and I walked around the lake, bought a beer, took pictures and met back with our group one hour later.

Many people were paddling around on these boats. Swimming was not allowed even though we saw two people doing it.

They sell all kinds of foods on sticks.

selling baby turtles. Not sure if it's to eat or as a pet.

These men were jamming together.

The kites that are sold everywhere.

Around the lake. Lots of people walking.

Loved this Rickshaw rider.

We then leave around 6:30 to go to eat and another huge restaurant with hundreds of other tourists.

After supper we go to a pedestrian only street where there is a market. You can buy all kinds of weird and wonderful foods (we might not consider them food, but the Chinese do)

The market was very crowded.

Scorpions on sticks. Ready to be fried and eaten- no thanks!

Some kind of slugs, or so I thought.

Starfish on a stick anyone?

Batter covered squid

more squid

Now this I could eat- potato chips

lots of stuff wrapped up, maybe small sausages, candy, etc..

crabs

We stayed here walking around for about 45-60 minutes. We were ready to hit our beds after this full day. It's 9 pm when we get back and it's straight to bed. Tomorrow is another early morning as we are leaving Beijing and flying to Xi,an.