2nd Day in Beijing

7/29, 9:30am China time, 8:30pm US time. We had a fun experience at breakfast this morning. The four of us we're sitting at a table in the restaurant part of the hotel. Two Chinese men and a woman sat at the table next to us. They stared at us and talked about us in Mandarin (as usual). We exchanged hellos. We were trying to figure out what one of the fruits were that we had. The guy at the table didn't speak a lick of English but was obviously enthralled with the American ladies. He came over and showed the fruit to us and said the name of it over and over in Chinese. We told him, "I don't know what your saying, we don't speak Chinese." I pulled up my translator app and spoke into it to ask "what is this fruit?" I showed him my phone and held up the little fruit. He was over joyed to try and help us! He spoke into my phone in Chinese, saying what the fruit was. It translated to "spring is very beautiful" 😂 We finally figured out on our own that the fruit was Leeche and what we thought was Leeche the other day was fig. We sat in the lobby afterwards waiting for our bus. He stayed with us and tried to get me to add him on WeChat (which is kind of Chinese Facebook). I tried to tell him I couldn't, but of course he couldn't understand me. LiLi told him I couldn't add him, in Chinese when she got there. It was a very funny experience. We told him goodbye and he grabbed my hand, kind of shook it, and bowed his head and touched his forehead to my hand. 

Right now we're driving through the Chinese country side for about and hour and half on our way to the Great Wall. 

1:30 Were driving back through the country side again leaving the Great Wall. It was an absolutely incredible experience! I was pretty worried about how the weather would be here before we left because it was supposed to rain our whole time in Beijing. The weather is perfect! There's been an overcast both days and a nice breeze today. We went to one of 4 tourist sections of the wall. We took our bus to the wall entrance where we pasted through a very aggressive street market 😂 The people selling from their booths we all shouting, "HELLO!? HELLO!? LADY LADY LADY! You need t-shirt, you need oom-bray-ya! (Umbrella) I give you low price!" They would chase us down, grab our arms, and follow us, the whole time shouting in broken English. It's very funny but kinda stressful! The First Lady tried to sell me a t-shirt for ¥280 ($40)! I told her "no no no! You crazy!" I got one for ¥25 ($3.75). After we got through the market, we took a chair lift up to the top of the wall. It was a beautiful ride up there! We climbed the wall for a while. The part we were on, sloped way down and then way back up again. We climbed down to the bottom and about a 1/4 of the way up the next slope. It wasn't very crowded at all. The breeze was so nice and not too hot. Climbing down wasn't bad but climbing back up took us a while! It was VERY steep! We rested back at the top for a while, then we got to take a toboggan down the mountains!! It was just one of the coolest experiences! It was basically a half metal pipe that lay through the mountains all the way back down to the entrance. We sat on this chair that folded in half. There was a stick in the middle that you used to control the speed. I would have liked to go a lot faster but with all the people in front of us, we were close to bumper to bumper at times. The people in front of us kept stopping. After we got back to our van, LiLi took us to a tea house where her friend performed a Chinese tea ceremony for us. That was a really neat little unexpected experience. The tea was very very high quality and lasts for many years. The tea lady taught us all the kinds of tea and their uses. I bought 3 kinds of tea and a tall tea cup with a strainer that changes the design on the outside of the cup when it gets hot! We went to the Pearl market after our little detour. When we think of markets in the US, we think food. But not in China. When you hear market, it means more like a flea market for new items. Many people with their booths of virtually the same thing, where you haggle for the best price. This particular market was at least 4 stories of just booths and a couple more with restaurant type places. The people are SO aggressive! Just like at the wall they will yell and grab you and chase you down to get you into their booth. If you hesitate in front of someone's booth, they will pester you until you either ignore them and walk (quickly) away or buy something. Even though it's a little stressful, it's also really fun. I think we got lots of great deals. 

Tomorrow we go to Fuzhou, our final destination, to spend a week at Hidden Treasure. We were originally supposed to fly out of Beijing at 6:40am but the flight was cancelled due to a typhoon in Fuzhou. Now we leave at 4:20pm. I think we're all totally fine with the later flight. We were not looking forward to our 4am wake up call! Goodnight from Beijing!