The Great Wall was one of the top priorities for this trip. I did go last time I was in Beijing but my school organized the trip and I was unsure how we were going to get there this time. Fortunately, the hostel had a poster advertising a tour: $280 ($45 USD) per person for breakfast, lunch, transportation to and from the hostel, and tour around the Mutianyu side of the Great Wall.
We got up and headed downstairs for breakfast around 7 and we got on the bus at 7:30 our group from the hostel was 8 total people, 4 who spoke portuguese so i’m guessing either from portugal or brazil, and 2 from Germany. On the way to the wall, we drove around the city picking up other people as well. Total it was 22 people.
The drive was about an hour and a half and Kimberly and I got a pretty good nap in considering we got up so early. Once we arrived, we had 2 options: go up the normal way or pay $80 rmb ($13 usd) to take a chairlift up and then take an alpine slide down. Of course, we took the lift up and the slide down. It was a good idea too since it was probably 10f outside and we didn’t want to exhaust ourselves just getting to the top.
The lift up was about 10 minutes, and just like any ski lift.
When I went last time, it was around March so the trees were just starting to bud, I actually prefer this view because it was clear and the snow made the scenery look very nice. I am glad that I thought ahead and bought a pack of 10 pairs of hand warmers at Menards for $5 because they helped a ton.
We got kind of tired after 2 hours and started heading over to the slide. I snuck my phone camera out of my pocket before I got on and took video of the whole thing.
The scenery was awesome and the ride was super fun. 10/10 would do it again. Sorry for the poor quality, I only uploaded a short part of the ride and reduced the resolution so I could get it up quickly.
We got down and met at a restaurant that we were instructed to rendezvous at. All the food was traditional Beijing stuff and I was happy they provided it because there was no way just the 2 of us would have been able to sample all these things in just one meal. At our table we had about 6 people from germany, 1 from the US, and 2 from Holland so it was really nice getting to know them and find out where they’ve been so far on their journeys.
We got another nap in and arrived back at the hostel at 4:30. It was good timing too because one of our relatives came to pick us up and take us to dinner for Peking duck. The meal was delicious and they were so generous for taking us out.
