Fool Me Once, Shame On Thee; Fool Me Again, And Again, And Again, Shame On Me!

Yesterday:
Was amazing. I'm living in Chao Yang district right now, and if you look it up on a map, you'll see it has a large park, Chao Yang Park. I suggested going there, thinking it was just a foliagey kind of park, but it is an amusing kind. I went on a roller-coaster, an actual one, which I've never done before.
Today:
Chris from Oxford and I went to the Great Wall, Simitai section, the most strenuous section supposedly. It was a 10Km walk among the mountains, nothing short of a spectacle. My mind was sufficiently blown, and my camera broke within 5 minutes of the three and a half hour walk. You can just google some well-taken pictures instead of looking at the garbage I took.
We were fooled into taking a taxi by a multi-personed, highly organized band of Chinese's's', much like the rickshaw driver, and the 'tea ceremony' ladies before them.
It's a few hour trip to the site of the Great Wall from Beijing. First the subway, to the long-distance bus, then taxi. , An overly nice lady offered to help us find the right bus from the train station. She escorted us the whole way, and didn't even want any money! Amazing. I thought this was a genuine act of kindness, as is often experienced here. When the bus dropped us off at the town nearest the wall (from where you need to take a taxi), the dodgiest, moustache-clad, Daniel Shimizu looking guy rushed on board and singled us out, telling us to go with him. It's as if he knew we were coming, so I figured the nice woman and him had an agreement. She sends people his way, and gets a cut of the 360 kuai taxi ride. I asked him if his friend phoned him and said we were coming, he obviously said no. It was definitely my fault for not having my guard up, I knew it was too fishy, but neither me or Chris really cared that much. I refuse to start thinking every time a stranger is nice to me it is a ploy to get my money, even though that is often the case. The cool part of the operation was that the bus driver who took us back to Beijing also had a cut in the profits. The queue to get on the return bus was outrageous, but when we showed up with Mr. Dong (Moustache Shimizu's real name), he gave the driver a wave and we were allowed ahead of some 50 odd people, right on the bus. Cool!