Part 1
Part 2
Part 3



When we arrived at the bottom of the toboggan run, these two men were dressed up as Mongols and wanted to take a picture with you. Of course there was a fee. 10 yuan. After you took the photo, they clarified that they wanted 10 yuan apiece. Oh well, just over a buck apiece, so it was still a pretty good deal. They growled and snarled for the photo and attempted to look mean, but as you can see, Caleb was not convinced!

We walked through the vendors and weren't going to buy anything, but then a woman approached the kids with some "I climbed the Great Wall" shirts. Our guide, Simon, said that the quality wouldn't be very good, but they were 100% cotton and some felt better quality than others, so I decided to barter.



Whoa, did she become aggressive when I didn't like her price. I tried to walk away and she grabbed ahold of my shirt sleeve and started pulling on it. I had to forcefully remove her hand because she was not going to let go! When she saw that I was indeed going to leave without making a purchase she decided that she was willing to bargain after all, and I ended up with 7 shirts for 70 yuan, or just over $1.25 apiece. I only wanted them for when we arrive at the airport back at home, so even if they don't last, the price was right.




The awful point--definitely not highlight--of my day was to have irritable bowel syndrome problems while climbing back down. The one time I had to have any problems this entire two weeks and it had to be here? Thankfully we made it down to the bottom to where there were bathrooms, but I can promise having IBS with a filthy Chinese pit toilet is not any fun. The few western toilets they had were worse, however, so I think I picked the lesser of two evils.

Simon took us to none other than McDonald's for lunch on the way back. UGH! I think I will gag if I see anymore cheeseburgers and fries on this trip. He said that he knows kids like it there, so he likes to take families there. I think it is because he likes it. I am guessing they had a budget for our family that was much more than McDonald's because he kept encouraging us to eat more. Normally our guides take us to more expensive Chinese restaurants, so I was dismayed at eating food that I don't even care for when I am in America. Simon and the driver ate quite a few burgers before they left, so I guess they enjoyed themselves. Oh well, at least we didn't have to deal with kids banging chopsticks on gold plated plates like we did in Wuhan.

Mr.Meticulous made sure that Micheline wiped her hands before she got in the van and chewed out the boys when they put their shoes on the seat. As we drove back towards the hotel, Micheline spilled what thankfully was only water on the floor. Even more thankfully, he had plastic floors and not carpet. I knew there was a reason I swiped papertowels out of the bathroom at the US consulate. :-) I was actually so thrilled to see some, I took about 20 for future hand-drying times as everywhere else their idea of papertowels is really just tissues like Kleenex. I was able to sop up most of the water and dump the soggy towels in a plastic bag, and the heater of the van dried the rest before we got out....whew!



Everyone slowly faded out on the way home and by the time Simon hopped out of the van to catch his subway home, I was only half awake and everyone else was dead to the world. When we got back to our hotel, Alyssa and I took an hour or two nap and then Jeff and the others went out to get dinner. I stayed here with her and they came back with a pizza!! I had feared a noodle bowl in the hotel room, so thank heavens for cosmopolitan Bejing where the food choices are much more varied. There is a pizza joint just down the corner from our hotel and it was actually pretty good. Alyssa couldn't eat that either, so she just nursed a smoothie type drink and then we doped her up with some meds and put her to bed for the night.