I left early today to go the Badaling section of the Great Wall, which is different from the place I went before. I went to the tour bus station again and left at 8:30AM or so. First stop was a rundown amusement park where they said we have an hour and a half to stay. This is the recommended, official tour from Beijing and even they are resorting to these scam type operations. Such a waste of valuable time that could be spent in more important places.
Second stop was the Ming Tombs. There we had lunch which was included with the tour. I was able to go 5 stories underground into the tomb of one of the Ming emperors (named Wanli). I noticed my Sony Music Player was missing. In the panic, I set my camera down and started searching through my backpack. Then I walked away leaving my camera behind on a table. Luckily after a couple minutes I got back there and it was still there. I feel bad about that mistake. Things were quickly going downhill for a few minutes. I later found my music player on my seat in tour bus, so I didn’t lose anything today after all.
The 3rd and final stop was the Great Wall of China. The Badaling section is the most popular and crowded. I figured I should go to compare to the other section of the wall I saw. There were a lot more people and vendors on the wall selling stuff. The number of people up there selling things kind of ruined the whole experience while they bothered me. I guess I’m used to it now, but I had one guy running after me and another blocking my way on the wall. I only had 2 hours to see the wall. When it was nearing time to go back to the bus, I was at the top of the wall and I didn’t know the fastest way back. I could walk down one direction, but I wasn’t sure if I could exit that way. Then I bought a ticket for a cable-car, but it was the wrong cable car. It went down the wrong side of the mountain! I realized this before I stepped on the car, but still a waste of money and time doing that. My next option was going down the correct cable-car (or actually more like a roller coaster). There was a line up and I was 6-7 minutes late for the bus. But someone else was 15 minutes late, so I wasn’t the one holding back the bus.
I make some mistakes today, but I made it back home a little after 7PM and everything is still okay.