Another adventurous day! We made it on our train this time and arrived in Shan Hai Guan mid-morning. Our first stop was Ancient Shanhaiguan and we were immediately persuaded to try the 3 person tandem bike, 30 RMB ($4.82/£2.82) for 2 hours. We made it down the main street and back again and were done with that!! It was so funny and really challenging, we returned it after five minutes and kept to our own two feet for the rest of the day.
We had hoped to visit the museum first, but it was closed on Mondays, a bit of a disappointment but there were lots of other things to keep us busy for the day.
We headed out to The Jiumenkou Great Wall, this is the part of the wall that goes over a river. It was a gorgeous day but very, very hot! We took in the views but didn’t do too much climbing. We settled down in the shaded park for our packed lunch and had a lovely conversation with 3 Chinese teenagers. They were working as tour guides and they were keen just to practise their English by chatting with us. I think they would have kept us there talking all day but we had to move along to our next attraction.
The Dragon’s Head is the bit of The Great Wall that extends into the sea, the end, or beginning if you like.It was quite an experience visiting the seaside in China, different but also quite similar to the seaside back home in England and America. It was lovely to be there seeing and hearing the sea splashing on the rocks. There were ice creams and amusements, I had a go on a giant slingshot and won on my last shot! Something so silly but felt so exciting, we gave the teddy bear to a woman nearby who had been watching. We sat for a bit in the Sea Watching Pavillion and had a wander around the grounds. The gardens were beautiful and lots of history to be seen.
After this we went back to Ancient Shanhaiguan to visit The First Pass Under Heaven, we wandered along the wall and through the Drum Tower area. We had tickets for the 20:53 train and had a go at trying to get on an earlier train but with no luck. So we found a shop for some noodles, interestingly named California Beef Noodle King of the U.S.A., though it had no connection at all with California!! At this point we had about 3 hours to wait for our train and we were completely exhausted and feeling sweaty and sticky; we were done sightseeing for the day. As we wandered around the station we were lucky to stumble upon a KTV and all our problems were solved. An air-conditioned room, cold beers and loads of great songs to entertain us. Some high points were: the video for, ‘Help!’ by the Beatles was of the Tianjin food street, Mr T’s rendition of ‘Words’ by the Bee Gees, the fact that the staff were standing outside the door for the entire duration of our stay, and the look on the attendants face as he came in whilst Mr T sang Michael Jackson’s ‘Earth Song’. We could have stayed for hours but actually had to pull ourselves away to catch our train!
A fab ending to a wonderful day!
-Mrs T
Turners Abroad 