fh_trips | Brickyard Retreat, Mutianyu Village, Monday Morning (March 5, 2018)

Entry tags:

spring break 2018: china

Brickyard Retreat, Mutianyu Village, Monday Morning (March 5, 2018)

Good morning, Fandom! It is...let's say "brisk" rather than "cold" this morning, but it's sunny and clear, perfect for walking along the Great Wall of China and then eating an absolute ton of steaming hot noodles and drinking tea.

Which, conveniently enough, is what's on tap for today!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

The Brickyard, located in the center of Mutianyu, preserves an important part of China’s rural outposts while injecting modern comforts to create simple and luxurious boutique accommodation near the Great Wall of China.

Today, the Brickyard is no longer a smoke-belching tile factory but a resort striving to be a sustainable operation conscious of both our environment and our community.

Edited 2018-03-05 10:50 (UTC)

Students will find themselves in the Premium Twin (or Premium Queen if it's funnier) rooms, with views of the Great Wall from the window, and wifi so you can Instagram that shit. Teachers and their guests are sleeping in the Deluxe Queen rooms, slightly larger than what the students get, and with better, unobstructed views of the Wall.

[OOC: Room assignments are here. NSFW posts go into private journals, please!]

Edited 2018-03-05 10:53 (UTC)

The Brickyard offers both Western and Chinese options for breakfast this morning. Be sure to eat up, especially if you're hiking all the way to the Wall.

The spa opens at 10am, and the gym opens at 6:30. Come back from your trip to the Wall and get a massage or start your day off with some weightlifting or a yoga class! Or relax in the 24-hour Jacuzzi again! Just let us know where you are in the header so we can join you.

The Great Wall at Mutianyu is not nearly as crowded as nearby Badaling or Juyongguan sections, where large tour groups follow the beaten tourism path. In late afternoon, or in poor weather, you often might find yourself alone with only the sound of the wind to keep you company. The restored section of the wall here is 2.2 kilometers long and can be reached either by walking, taking a chair lift, or riding a cable car. There's also an option for a toboggan ride allllll the way back down to the bottom. Feel free to ride that a couple of times, its a lot of fun.

Edited 2018-03-05 11:00 (UTC)

The Brickyard is located in the center of the town, and there are bike paths and clearly marked hiking trails leading to the other nearby Chinese villages of Beigou, Xinying, and Tianxianyu. You can also hike all the way from the village up to the Wall. If you don't want to do that, maaaaybe steer clear of Steve Rogers this morning.

Use the Google! Find something fun! Tell us about it in your header!

Tomorrow is a day trip to Beijing, so get to the Wall today!

Steve Rogers was absolutely hiking all the way to the Wall. He had his knit hat down over his ears, a comfortable pair of shoes on, a water bottle for hydration, and handy directions for how to get there. Anyone else want to come? It's only a hour and a half hike...plus the Wall. It'll be fun!

Norman was regretting packing mostly shorts, today. Maybe five minutes of research probably could have avoided this, but could he really be blamed for assuming that the school with access to portals that could travel through space and time would pick a warmer time of the year to come to China for a trip?

He sighed, and then decided that he was going to keep his warm flannel pajama bottoms on today in an attempt to ration his clean pants. Maybe it would warm up this afternoon?

If Norman, still clad in his flannel pajama bottoms, wasn't going to make a hike to the wall this morning, at the very least he could give an actual Chinese breakfast in China a try. So it was going to be the pickled vegetables - he enjoyed even the ones he couldn't quite identify - the rice congee, and a few tea eggs.

He was distracted for a while before even starting to eat because the tea eggs were way prettier than he had expected they would be. He needed to turn one over in his hands and just look at the cracked eggshell patterns all over them before popping one into his mouth.

Well. It was definitely a big wall. Peridot stared at it, hard, as if trying to will it into doing something interesting. Brick, composed of crushed granite, marble, limestone, and shale.

Yep. It was definitely a big wall.

"Well," Mara said, squinting up at it. "It's a really big wall."

"Just like they said it would be," Peridot agreed, looking up at it, too. Sure, she looked up at pretty much everything, but for this wall, she was looking extra up. "Is that all it does? Just... sits there, being a wall?"

She wasn't impressed.

Paris was being Very Polite and Very Accommodating, and was not smacking the oblivious lady with the giant purse on the cable car even though she hadn't gotten hit with said purse six times already.

She was giving her a look that could fry lead, though.

After looking at it last night, Rey was absolutely here today.

And looking up at the top of the wall, debating whether it looked climbable.

"Well, it's done that pretty well for a few thousand years," Mara said. "I think that's why it's famous. Or because it's really long? Maybe both."

"Homeworld has structures that run the entire length of the planet," Peridot noted, wrinkling her nose a little bit, "that have been standing since before I was made. We don't have Gems travelling from across the galaxy to come see them, generally."

On the surface of it, going to one of the biggest tourist attractions on the planet might seem to go against the grain of Peebee’s “do things that no one’s done” philosophy. But this planet was over a century away from making contact with Citadel space, so really, in a way pretty much anything she did here was brand new.

Besides, she really wanted to see the wall. Which she would absolutely be tobogganing back down later, thank you very much.

“Wow. That’s . . .” She genuinely sounded awed. “Wow.”

Hopefully the kitchen had made plenty for their guests, because Sidon was a big guy and it took an awful lot of tea eggs and smoked salmon to fill him up, and the fresh air and excitement has certainly whetted his appetite. He eat voraciously and eagerly, thrilled to see what the day ahead would hold for them.

"Maybe you should look into starting the tourist industry," Mara said, smiling. "Come, stare at this thing and give us money for it. Then go away."

"Think we could do it and not get caught?" Mara murmured.

Peridot scratched at her chin thoughtfully, looking up at the wall some more.

There was a lot of wall to look up at.

"Homeworld doesn't do money, really. But I suppose if there was some way to take organic beings on tour there without them being messily destroyed, it could prove to be a lucrative endeavor..."

This was a terrible idea, 'Dot.

Tip had gone for some tea eggs, too, as well as some more western-style biscuits with plenty of jam, butter, and honey.

"Hey Norman," she greeted. "You look comfy."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 7

Brickyard Retreat, Mutianyu Village, Monday Morning (March 5, 2018)

The Hotel

Rooms [Monday morning]

Breakfast [Monday morning]

Exploring the Grounds [Monday morning]

Excursions

The Great Wall of China [Monday]

Exploring Mutianyu Village [Monday]

Mod Your Own Fun [Monday]

OOC

Re: Exploring Mutianyu Village [Monday]

Re: Room 10

Re: Breakfast [Monday morning]

Re: The Great Wall of China [Monday]

Re: The Great Wall of China [Monday]

Re: The Great Wall of China [Monday]

Re: The Great Wall of China [Monday]

Re: The Great Wall of China [Monday]

Re: The Great Wall of China [Monday]

Re: The Great Wall of China [Monday]

Re: The Great Wall of China [Monday]

Re: Breakfast [Monday morning]

Re: The Great Wall of China [Monday]

Re: The Great Wall of China [Monday]

Re: The Great Wall of China [Monday]

Re: Breakfast [Monday morning]