Brickyard Retreat, Mutianyu Village, Tuesday Morning (March 6, 2018)

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Good morning, Fandom! Today is a little warmer than yesterday, with beautiful clear skies. Be sure to put on your sunscreen! You'll need it if you're getting on the bus to Beijing!

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The Hotel

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Rooms [Tuesday morning]

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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!]

Breakfast [Tuesday morning]

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The Brickyard offers both Western and Chinese options for breakfast this morning. Be sure to eat up, you're doing a lot of walking today. It can take four hours to tour just the Forbidden City.

Exploring the Grounds [Tuesday morning]

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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.

Re: Exploring the Grounds [Tuesday morning]

[wrongkindofsith]

As soon as the spa opened, Cara was having a massage, because of course she was.

Re: Exploring the Grounds [Tuesday morning]

[harpy_daughter]

And where else did she expect her plus-one to be? Other than being a lazy ass and abusing the spa for all it was worth?

Yoga, massage, jacuzzi, food, nap, repeat. That was going to be Surreal's life for the next week, bar anything truly interesting happening.

Excursions

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BEIJING

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The bus leaves precisely at 8am for the hour long drive into the city, giving you enough to to hit the highlights of this amazing city.

Touring

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Forbidden City

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They aren't kidding about this being a city: there are 980 different buildings--9999 different rooms--in this walled area that was once forbidden to all but members of the Imperial Family and their staff. Try to count how many different dragons and phoenixes you spot: you'll lose track quickly because there are toooooons of them

Tiananmen Square

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Tianamen Square is one of the largest public squares in the world. Named after the Tiananmen ("Gate of Heavenly Peace") located to its north and separating it from the Forbidden City, the square contains the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. It was also the site of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. Maybe don't bring that up.

The Summer Palace

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The Summer Palace is a vast ensemble of lakes, gardens and palaces that was an imperial garden in the Qing Dynasty. Mainly dominated by Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake, it covers an expanse of 2.9 square kilometers (1.1 sq mi), three-quarters of which is water, the Summer Palace grounds are still stunning even this early into the spring.

Temple of Heaven

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Another UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Temple of Heaven was built in 1406 and is an imperial complex of religious buildings visited by the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to heaven for good harvest.

Re: Touring

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

Shopping

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China’s capital city is a fascinating mix of traditional buildings and gleaming new skyscrapers, and its shopping scene reflects this fusion. Charming century-old tea shops line narrow alleyways while in sleek, multi-story malls, global and local chains beckon shoppers. Pick up something great! Or something hugely tacky but in a great way!

Re: Shopping

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Steve was a grown-up, by God, and not, therefore, buying the "I [Heart] BJ" shirts he was seeing in the market stalls.

Not buying one yet, anyway.

Re: Shopping

[always_someone]

Norman had managed, by some miracle, to get his mom to put some money into his bank account for him, since he'd taken a picture of what he'd packed to wear on the trip and then just took another picture out the window to illustrate just how bad he was at... existing, basically.

So now he was kind of standing awkwardly, looking at the shops, and then toward one of the malls, and then back at the shops, and...

"I have no idea what I'm doing."

China was hard.

Food-ing

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Street food! Noodle shops! KFC, McDonald's and Starbucks if you're already tired of Chinese food! The school has even arranged for a food tour of the city if that's more your speed.

Re: Food-ing

[misshapen_spark]

Um, food tour? Of course that was what Yang was going to do, once she'd finished sending Tai too many dragon pictures to count.

She was going to eat everything. She was a growing Huntress with an aura to fuel, after all!

Re: Food-ing

[onefootoutthedoor]

All the food? ALL THE FOOD. Peebee gleefully careened from one vendor to another, sampling everything, and the weirder, the better.

THE GREAT WALL

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Hike the Great Wall [Tuesday]

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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.

Exploring Mutianyu Village [Tuesday morning]

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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.

OOC

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Now I am ded of OCD.

Re: OOC

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Also, yeah, the BJ shirts are real. And hilarious.