We Conquer the Great Wall and Summer Palace-- and a Chinese Toilet Claims its First Victim

Today Jenn and I hired a driver to take us to the Mitianyu section of the Great Wall, which is a less touristy (which is a totally relative term here) and well preserved section of the Great Wall.   Our driver was amazing- for $60 he drove us all over Beijing for 8 hours and spoke pretty good English, so we were able to ask him some useful Mandarin phrases on the 1 hour and ½ drive. 

Mr. Zhong, our Chinese driver (shhh..he's taking a nap)

 Beijing countryside

Hands down the absolute highlight of the day (besides experiencing the Great Wall)  was Jenn’s first try at using a Chinese toilet…..Since I have used one Chinese toilet so far I am clearly the more experienced Chinese toilet user- so she asks me which way you should face while using, should there really be so much splashing, why is the floor all “wet” around the toilet, etc etc.    So we are popping squats and doing our thing when next thing I know she is freaking out in the stall and says that her Great Wall lift ticket just fell in the toilet!  Fortunately we were able to rescue the ticket from its unsanitary liquid doom and wrap it in a plastic baggy I found hanging on the toilet partition door which I can only assume functions as a poop pick up bag??  Anyways, it gave us a good chuckle before we took the lift up to the Great Wall!  They still accepted her ticket and I do hope that poor Chinese woman who took her ticket took the time to wash her hands after handling it!

 Are those poop bags???

 The contaminated  lift ticket is now “hermetically sealed”  in plastic bag-

If Jenn tries to show you any momentos in her scrapbook when we get home

be sure to wash your hands after viewing :)

Ascending the Great Wall by lift

 A few pics.  There are no words to describe how amazing it is to be up here.  
 It’s also an incredibly laborious hike.

It’s a bit kitschy, but we totally took the giant slide-luge back down the mountain.  We couldn’t help ourselves.  I'll have pictures of that tomorrow hopefully.

Summer Palace- it’s raining!!!!  We blew through her in like 1 hour.   It was beautiful, but people were getting pushy because they didn’t want to get wet.  Our driver told us that we are lucky it rained at the Summer Palace because it’s the most beautiful when it rains.

2008 Beijing Olympic Village..still raining