I don’t speak Chinese

This post covers Friday’s activities on my trip to Beijing (part 2/4)

Friday: (Pictures from this Day)

Whenever you tell anyone about a trip to China, they always mention one thing: The Great Wall. I was a little worried that I wasn’t going to be able to see it during my time here since I didn’t have much time off, but going to Beijing made it possible.

We arranged a day long tour with our hotel for about 200 rmb (roughly $30 US, catching on to the conversion rate yet… me either … dividing by 7 sucks). We knew it would take us to the Great Wall, a Ming Tomb, and lunch, but that wasn’t all they were going to do for us.

We ended up going to the Juyongguan section (I think) of the Great Wall, and believe it or not it wasn’t really what I expected. Instead of calling it the Great Wall they should have named it “The Great Stone Ladder” (at least for our section). I couldn’t complain though the landscape was beauitful mountainious- reminicient of out West in the states. We spent about two hours climbing the wall, and it was quite an experience. It was something I think I will remember doing for awhile. It was also fairly physically challenging.

After successfully making it up four towers and back down in one piece our tour proceeded to take us to what was to be the first of many combination stops/tourist traps. We ended up going to Beijing Dragon Land Superior Jade Gallery where many different forms of Jade artwork were made. They gave us 50 RMB voucher (a prelude of what to come) then a very brief tour which included a glimpse of the process in which the jade was made into various pieces of art, and how to tell fake jade from real jade. Then we went into a large showroom area where we could purchase any number of jade items. To be fair the store was actually really fun and they didn’t make you feel obligated to buy anything.

The next stop was to one of the thirteen Ming tombs. We were expecting to spend a decent amount of time here, but we ended up going to one of the smaller ones which allowed us to get in and out in record pace. I thought Mallory might like this combo turtle dragon statue they had there.

After the Ming Tomb we went to lunch at the SIWEI Friendship Store, before we actually got to eat as they “prepared our table” we were lucky ennough to be given a tour of how various urns were created and painted, something the friendship store just happen to sell a lot of. You could tell these stops were for tourists as the parking lot was filled only with large buses. Lunch itself was very good and a decent amount of food since it was included in our tour fee.

The next location we got to visit was the Beijing Dong Wu Silk Museum. The provided us with a fairly detailed tour of how silk was made, and we even got to help stretch out some silk that was being used in a blanket. The museum section wasn’t huge but it was very well done, and they even had an old machine that they used to process silk with. We then got to their showroom where they had loads of different blankets and silk clothes for our purchace. After we found the unmarked exit we proceeded to our next stop- Dr. Tea.

We were taken to a private room where our tour group was prepared various samples of Teas to try, along with information about each Tea. We tried Jasmine, Oolong, Litchi and Puerh tea. I was surprised that even I liked the tea, and they almost got my business, but I was able to hold off with the likely hope of finding a cheaper item elsewhere.

Our final stop was of the tour was a foot massage place. We each got to a herbal soak, then about a 2o minute foot massage. It really worried me how painful my feet had been during the past couple of weeks (particularly my heel) and when I was getting the massage I could definitely feel the pain localized in various areas. I may have to go to the doctor to get an x-ray if the problem persists. Anyway overall the massage was great. We then were told about the differences between eastern and western medicine. How eastern medicine was more focused on preventing problems while western medicine was focused on treating. The presentation was actually enjoyable. We were then asked if we would like to have some doctors come look at our palms if they were available. Pretty soon all the doctors came in and started talking to everyone. The guy who examined me went like this:

Doc: Any digestion problems?
Me: Not really
Doc: Any insomnia problems?
Me: Not really
Doc: Your pretty much healthy

Apparently I was the only one who got the you are  healthy answers. Everyone else was asked or told strangely similar things, and then were offered various medicine for their ailments. One of our members was taken in a private room to be told something serious. I believe it was something along the lines of he wouldn’t be able to have sex in the future unless he bought some meds that cost 600 rmb/bottle that need 2 bottles/month for 3 months… you do the math.

Anyway I actually enjoyed this as well, it was like I was at the fair while getting a foot massage, and we all had a good laugh about it on the bus.

This concluded our hotel arranged tour. We ended up seeing some great places and quite a few stops that weren’t expected but were fun anyway (most the time)

We were all starving after the trip and ended up eating dinner at a “Hot Pot” restaurant called Little Sheep, where you select various types of vegetables and meats and you put them onto a boiling pot in the middle of your table when you want to eat them. I enjoyed this hot pot much more then I did the hot pot on campus.

At night we ended up going to San Li Tun, a bar street. We quickly realized that like almost everything in China, the prices were negotiable. On a side note: many of us have almost started price negotitions as a hobby. We always are trying to see who can end up with the best deal. The first bar was very relaxing and we ended up having a couple of beers outside in the cool air. We ended up going to a couple more bars during the night including one where the was singing. We ended the night on with a bit of a tiff with a bar who basically doubled are drink order without telling us, but in the end it was only a few bucks.