After an excellent lunch at The Sports Club (fixme) where we enjoyed a great winter melon and egg white soup, we took our private tour bus to the Great Wall in (fixme). The mountains are beautiful with wildflowers blooming. Rather than hike up the mountain, we rode up to the wall in a tram cable car like at a ski area. There was still plenty of hiking to do on top of the wall, with the final section being so steep we had to stop and rest a couple of times.
The path to the tram is lined with vendors selling t-shirts, table runners, and all sorts of knick-knacks. On the way back down, an older man lured me into his booth and blocked the exit until I bought something. I got a black "silk" table cloth embroidered with golden dragons and phoenixes for 100Y. The starting price was 450, so I think I got a good price. The negotiations took 10 or 15 minutes and the vendors from neighboring stands were watching closely and laughed when we finally settled on a price. While he was wrapping the table cloth up, he kept muttering under his breath in Chinese like he had gotten cheated in the deal. Then he demanded a souvenir from America to help ease the pain of selling so cheap. He suggested that an American coin would be a good souvenir, but not having any I gave him my Livestrong wristband instead. At first he didn't know what it was, but I explained about Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France 7 times in a row and recovering from cancer of the brain. He seemed to recognize the story and happily accepted the Livestrong band.
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