{"id":38,"date":"2007-04-04T00:25:34","date_gmt":"2007-04-04T08:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayivey.com\/wordpress\/?p=38"},"modified":"2007-04-04T00:26:40","modified_gmt":"2007-04-04T08:26:40","slug":"driven-up-the-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rayivey.com\/wordpress\/driven-up-the-wall\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>

The China World Hotel, by the way, is dazzling.\u00a0 And since my stay is three weeks, I qualified for a \u201cclub floor\u201d room, which included all sorts of groovy perks.\u00a0 Starting with complimentary car service from the airport.<\/font><\/p>\n

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I was met by a handler no more than three feet off of the plane, and she whisked me through customs, baggage, and immigration lines with martial efficiency.\u00a0 At the hotel they greeted me like I was a rock star. I was shuttled out of the enormous, gilded, perfumed lobby up to the exclusive Horizon Club where I relaxed and sipped a beverage while they checked me in.<\/font><\/p>\n

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The service in this place is like nothing I\u2019ve ever experienced.\u00a0 There\u2019s a pillow menu<\/em> in the room, for heaven\u2019s sake.\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

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When I got to the room it was about 4:30 p.m.\u00a0 It was 2:30 a.m. for me and I\u2019d been awake for 23 hours.\u00a0 Still, I felt reasonably okay, so I stumbled down to the lobby and began exploring the huge shopping mall underneath the complex.\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

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I was hoping to find a charger for my GameBoy.\u00a0 This is China, I thought, which is right next to Japan.\u00a0 There\u2019s got to be LOTS of game stores!\u00a0 Sadly the mall was nothing but wildly upscale American and European boutiques, restaurants, and \u201cLe Cool\u201d Ice Skating Rink.\u00a0 I ate at Pizza Hut (sue me), then went back to my room and managed to stay awake until almost ten o\u2019clock.<\/font><\/p>\n

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The next morning, Sunday, I dealt with my jet lag by heading up to the Badaling section of the Great Wall (it\u2019s about an hour out of the city).\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty amazing and I got some good pictures, including several of me atop a very bored Bactrian camel.<\/font><\/p>\n

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There are two major places where you visit the wall near Beijing, and I went to the \u201cless touristy\u201d one.\u00a0 It was still a mass of tacky souvenir stands with shockingly aggressive vendors.\u00a0 How aggressive?\u00a0 Well, if you walked away from them they\u2019d body block you in an attempt to keep your attention while they whittled down their price some more on the crappy t-shirt they wanted to sell you.\u00a0 Or they\u2019d grab you.\u00a0 I\u2019m not very fond of strangers grabbing me for any reason, and let\u2019s just say it\u2019s lucky there was no international incident.<\/font><\/p>\n

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After hours in the bus and lots of steep climbing on and near the Wall, I was ready for bed early.<\/font><\/p>\n

Average Rating: 4.9<\/span> out of 5<\/span> based on 245<\/span> user reviews.<\/span><\/div><\/p>

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