I don't know why our Great Wall trip had to start off with a 7:30 a.m. departure. I'm on vacation mofos. We all jumped into this mini bus that was waiting down the alley and took off for The Great Wall. It was supposed to be a 2 hour drive but I swear it took longer. We stopped and picked up some guys from England on the way. That took some time. We later dropped them off to another car. Apparently, they were going to hike a different section of the wall. We got there and the incline began. The vendors were hounding like crazy. One lady gave me her card and told me, "Remember Lee in booth 133". She wrote my name down so she could get me on the way back. There's more on that to come.

There are so many damn steps there. I knew that going into it but it's one thing to hear about it and another to actually walk it. We had some small girl that was our tour guide and she said she does 2 to 3 tours a week. I don't know how she makes it through it each week. One of the girls that was with us has an asthma issue and we acted like we were being nice and waiting for her to catch up but we were really resting. Along the walk, I ran into a guy that's near where I'm from in California. Talk about a small world. We took tons of pictures. Instead of walking all the way down, we took a toboggan down. There's some rule where you have to stay 25 meters behind the person in front of you. It was fun to go fast and hit the curves like you're in a bobsled. It was fun until the log jam behind some paranoid chick riding her break all the way down. Talk about a buzz kill. She had about 10 people lined up behind her that wanted to stab her to death. That included her boyfriend.

Now comes the return trip through the vendors. Sure enough, Lee from booth 133 pulls out the card with my name on it and pulls me over. I didn't really want anything there and then I saw a housewarming gift for Marie and Kelly and I started my price bargain. She started off high as hell but I worked her down to a price that I wanted. Then I didn't them anymore. She kept pulling me by my triceps and eventually grabbed my shirt and yanked when I finally tried to walk off. After she lowered her price below my asking price, she pushed me in the back as I walked away. I pissed her off big time. After talking with my group, I realized that I was getting a good price so I walked back and tried to get Lee's low price but it took a little work. I finally got it and she was probably talking smack about me in Chinese cause some people were laughing but I didn't care. She just got manhandled by me in pricewars. Suck on that Lee from booth 133.

Our night was pretty tame after that. Half of the group went to bed soon after we returned and had a snack. A couple of us cabbed it to some other part of town to try out some Thai place. The food was really good. I might have to try some Thai places when I get back to the states. I finally bought some long sleeve shirt since I had been freezing the past couple of nights. I only packed shorts and short sleeve t-shirts since I expected warm weather. I'm pretty sure it was dirty when I bought it but it does the trick. I only needed it for tonight and tomorrow night. I have one more night here and then I come back on Sunday. I think tomorrow will consist of massages and more shopping. My body could use that. No happy endings, TJ.

Day 5 Pics