The Long-Awaited Continuance of China!

Hello. Sorry for the delay. Things, such as life, prevent me from blogging on a consistent basis. My bad.

Day 3 of China started off pretty early! We had the hotel breakfast and then hopped on our tour bus and took off to the Ming Tombs. This was a good hour or 2 away from our hotel so I brought my travel pillow and was able to nap for a bit on the bus. (With the help of George’s shoulder). The tombs are where all the emperors of China have been buried. We took a walk down Sacred Road, which is a stone foot path through the heart of the land that everyone is buried at, with tons of statues. The Chinese culture is very symbolic. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Chinese calendar years; I was born in the year of the Rabbit and George the year of the Ox. (He thinks and I’m not looking it up) Anyway, on Sacred Road they have giant depictions of all of the ‘year animals’ as well as others.

There were children from our tour group that were climbing all over these big statues and their proud parents were taking pictures, and no one seemed offended so I thought it would be okay to do it too. I chose the camel to climb on… why? Well… I don’t know, but it has humps and it looked doable and fun. Boy was I wrong! I tried stretching one leg over the neck of the camel, but was too short, and my jeans were too tight to accomplish this feat, so I tried from the other side. I eventually gave up and had George take my picture of me sitting on his foot. Well I had gathered a few spectators that seemed to be amused by my slipping, sliding and shrieking because of the slipping and sliding… who encouraged me that I could do it. Another couple cheered me on and Jon said he could do it. I said- then you do it! And he climbed up it the first try; no slipping, sliding, or yelling. So then- I was determined to get on that stupid camel too! He got off, and I tried again, unsuccessfully- so then he climbed back up (effortlessly) and pulled me up, while George lifted me. How pathetic. I got my picture though! Check it out.




After the Ming Tombs (where we never actually got to see a tomb... because the land there is spread out over 100’s of acres) we drove to another government mandated factory, this time for Jade. It was neat to see all of the sculptures and learn a bit about the history of Jade in China, but nothing terribly exciting. They were selling Jade sculptures for the equivalent of $100,000 USD. They were certainly cool, but I hope I never have enough money that I could ever feel the need to purchase a horse sculpture for 6 figures. If I ever am (not that it wouldn’t be awesome) you have my permission to slap me, and tell me to donate the money to an animal rescue. Deal?



We had lunch at a cloisonné factory/ restaurant. This was my favorite meal, because it tasted like American Chinese food. Living in Japan, you’d think we would get delicious Asian dishes, and we do, but they don’t taste the same as if we were in the states. The ones we eat are far more authentic, and good, but different. The cloisonné stuff was very beautiful, and I did enjoy seeing how that was made. It’s all hand painted and very beautiful, but we didn’t purchase anything from this store.

My favorite meal we had in China. Yes, those are french fries, they were very close to McDonald's fries... but I didn't eat them!





Next, we were back on the bus for another half hour, passing an almost Disney world! Apparently sometime in the 1990’s someone began building a Disney theme park in this region, but the company went bankrupt. So there stands a beautiful entrance complete with ticket booths and turnstiles, and a giant Cinderella castle, but it was never completed. This made me very sad! The abandoned theme park was quickly forgotten because we arrived at the GREAT WALL OF CHINA!

Yes, I did it! We did it! Looking back on it, I just feel so fortunate that I got to see the GREAT WALL. And it was… well… great. The entrance to the wall was grand and fabulous and Trevor Whatever explained that we had two choices of how to spend our 3-4 hours at the wall. We could A.) Go left… he explained this option to be interesting, relatively flat and a nice casual walk. If we were happy that we made it to The Wall and we could say we had done it—take this option. OR B.) Go right. Which would take about 2.5 hours to get to the top of the wall (for the point that we visited at, obviously it goes on for hundreds of miles), and it was a very steep climb. This was for people in excellent shape that wanted to challenge themselves.

So in my head… obviously… we’re going left. We did it. We made it to China, we were at the Great Wall; we could walk along it, take pictures and enjoy our afternoon. I look at George and can tell exactly what he’s thinking… “We are totally going right!!!” DAMN. Then we have a verbal conversation… and somehow or another he convinces me that we can do it- we’re here, this is our one chance in our young adult lives to climb to the very high point of the wall, we’ll do it together, and it’s going to be amazing, wonderful, awesome and the view at the top will be incredible. Wanna know what? George was wrong. It hurt like hell. When Trevor said it was steep, he didn’t mention it was stairs. And I’m not talking about a few stairs… this was STAIRS, gigantic Titanic kinda stairs. Which were all uneven. One step… excuse me… stair… would be about 5 inches tall and the next would be 18 inches. It was awful. All of the pictures on the wall are George 25-50 yards ahead of me cheering me on and taking my picture… of me gagging on the polluted air, thighs and calves burning, heart racing, sweating, using my hands to climb up these giant stairs. My nose was running, it was cold, but I was hot, I had to use the bathroom (no nice bathrooms anywhere in China, much less on the great wall), basically… you name it—I was complaining about it. I really am thankful that George puts up with me.







He was patient and sweet the whole time and kept telling me how accomplished I would feel. Well, after 2.5 hours of climbing, I made it. We did it! We were very proud of ourselves. Unfortunately—the view was not very impressive. I could tell that it should have been impressive but it was SO hazy that the view from the first tower was just about as good as the eighth! George disagrees, but my legs, which burned for weeks… know that I am right. It took us about an hour down, a trip to the gift shop and the bathroom before we were back on the bus, napping until we reached our dinner stop. This meal was “Hot Pot”, which is a lot like Shabu-Shabu (for all you people who are familiar with eating at restaurants in Japan). Basically, they give you tons of raw meat, noodles and veggies and an individual pot of boiling water to cook your own meal. It’s very good… though I really did question the sanitation of it al. The chopsticks were passed from meat to veggies to noodles and back… which is fine, I didn’t get sick, but just felt it was questionable. Overall, the meal was very good!

Me with my hot pot dinner:


We drove past the Olympic Birds Nest stadium and the giant cube building as well, and the bus driver pulled over so everyone could take pictures… ours didn’t turn out so well, but it was nice to see all lit up. While we didn’t tour it ourselves, we had friends who were in Beijing the same week we were (though not with our tour group) that did go inside and were horribly disappointed. They said the building is already deteriorating (these were built just 2-3 years ago!!!) The track is falling apart, the bathroom sinks are falling off the walls etc… it has just not been kept to the standard that other Olympic facilities have been. Maybe my bias is being from Atlanta and how proud us Atlantian’s (???) are of hosting the Olympics. Our park dedicated to it is immaculate and one of the biggest attractions and prides of Atlanta. To hear that Beijing has taken little pride in their Olympic land is pretty disheartening.



When we got back to the hotel that night I showered and then paid for the optional event of the night… a full acupressure body massage. George didn’t want one, but my legs were still twitching from the wall and my feet hurt too, so I didn’t feel I could turn down an hour and a half massage for $30 USD. Ya know? The woman arrived to our hotel room at 8:45 on the dot. I had imagined she’d bring a massage table, or be wearing a uniform or something… but she was casual, in jeans and a jacket, texting on her phone when I opened the door. She put her purse and jacket on a chair in our room and then got to work. She had a plastic garbage bag filled with tea leaves, which she used our bathroom sink to fill with hot water. She had me sit on the edge of our bed and put my feet in this bag… kind of like a pedicure, but only with the soaking and lotion. She spent a good 50 minutes massaging my feet, which including putting pressure on each little part of my foot, from my ankle to my toes, and whacking the heck out of my heels. Sometimes it would even hurt. She didn’t speak a lick of English except for: “Okay?” And I didn’t speak any Chinese except for “Ni How” which means hello. But… we got along just fine. The funniest part of this for me was George was just sitting there in the hotel with me. He put in headphones and read a book in a chair in the corner, and I watched CNN while she gave me my massage. The whole situation was completely humorous to me, and when she’d tickle my feet (I’m pretty ticklish) I couldn’t help but laugh, not only because it tickled, but because of the entire situation. The rest of the time was spent rubbing my legs, back, behind (also funny) and a bit of my arms. It was nice, but I’m glad I didn’t spend more than $30 on it!

I don’t think I even got out of bed when she was done, and slept straight through to morning. I was too tired to care about how hard the bed was!

The next day was day 4 of 6… and the highlight of the day was the Panda pen at the Beijing Zoo. I don’t know if many of you know that I love Panda’s, and it’s even George’s nickname for me, but now you do. I don’t think I’ve mentioned the tout, err—the people yelling in the streets and standing at the door to our tour bus when we’d pull up selling us, socks, hats, watches, jewelry, scarves, and you guessed it (well… maybe you didn’t…) PANDA HATS. I’m not talking about a baseball cap with a Panda printed on it… I’m talking about a hat that when you put it on, makes you look like you are a panda bear, complete with a nose and everything. From the moment we arrived in China I saw these and wanted one to wear to the zoo. I’d repeat it over and over… “Today, I’m going to get a panda hat”… but then I would never get one. Well, we were leaving the hotel that morning, on the way to the zoo and I still didn’t have my hat! Lucky for us, there was a tout (I don’t really know if that can be used as a noun), selling the Panda hats… the only words he seemed to know in English were “Hello… Pander, Pander… Hello!” Yes, not even Pan-Duh, but Pan-DUR. We got a kick out of this and after purchasing my hat (for all of $3USD), repeated over and over again the rest of the trip “Pander, pander!”







We went to the zoo and only had 40 minutes to spend there. This is where I was annoyed we were on a guided tour with a schedule. For the most part it was really nice but sometimes I’d want to spend more time there… like the zoo… I would have liked to have had more time to see the other animals, and not just 40 minutes devoted to the panda’s… although they were the main attraction, and I did love seeing them. Trevor said there’s only about 1600 panda’s left in the whole world… SO sad, and hard to imagine. That makes me a very sad Panda. (South Park anyone… anyone?) They were just as cute as you would imagine, laying in the sun and eating bamboo. We got some cute pictures of them and then were off to the second stop of the day… the CCTV tower.

I have to give credit to our friend Jon for taking this photo with his very cool camera/wide angle lens. Thanks Jon L!



This a building where radio and television antennas live, similar to the Space Needle in Seattle, except this one literally below freezing at top with huge gusts of freezing wind. We spent all of 3 minutes at the top then were ready to get outta there! Brrrr! It was a nice view though, it was a very clear day with clear skies and we all agreed we wished we would have gone to the Great Wall on this day! After the tower we went to another government factory, this time a silk factory! This again, was very interesting but we didn’t make any purchases. They showed us the life cycle of a silk worm, and how their silk is made into different things. Their main focus was on silk comforters, which really did feel quite lovely. They’re similar to a down comforter, but are hypoallergenic, and feel more like cotton. We were tempted to buy pillows made of the silk, but decided against it. There were quite a few purchases from our tour-mates though! One guy who was allergic to down found this to be a great alternative, and I agreed that they would probably make a very good substitute!

The machines where the silk is extracted from the silkworm cocoons:



After the silk factory was lunch, which sorry for you, we can’t remember what we ate… and then we went to the Pearl Market. Now, we heard “pearl market” and weren’t really sure what to expect, but it was absurdly overwhelming!!! It was in a giant building, that was about 6 stories tall, and each floor was about the size of a Sears or a JC Penny’s. These floors were packed full of vendors shouting “Hey Lady! Special price! Come look!” They were selling everything from tea, jewelry, electronics, ‘brand name’ handbags, art, shoes, to Chinese souvenirs. Oh my goodness. We were told by Trevor that we could bargain for everything and that if someone told you a price of 1,000, you offered 100 (Chinese RMB). Well, I am non-confrontational. Arguing generally terrifies me. I want everyone to be pleased all the time. I never want to make anyone mad, and I don’t want to be yelled at. So putting me in a bargaining situation was not a good thing. If someone told me they couldn’t go lower, I’d say okay… to which George would jump in and get them down much lower!

I tried bargaining for a pair of boots but didn’t do really well. I finally told the lady that I didn’t want them anymore because she was yelling at me to buy them, which made her really mad. So she and her other vendor friends started yelling at me and grabbing my arm and backpack to stay and give them more money for the shoes. I have never had anxiety issues, but I seriously almost had a panic attack. George had wandered another aisle over and I freaked out! I felt trapped, and afraid! After literally pushing my way through them, I made it away from the crazy boot ladies just fine, but was kind of scarred by the situation. We also ran into some problems with them grabbing George (‘cause he’s so handsome) and pulling the camera case off of him, which was pretty frightening for me. I was sure we would get pick-pocketed! (We didn’t). However, the entire experience was not wasted and we both had a few successful purchases with nice people, and were kind of addicted to the bargaining by the end of the afternoon!

We finished there with our purchases, and headed to the Temple of Heaven, which is where many of the Emperors would go to worship during their reign. There was a park to walk through, and there was a lot going on! Exercise classes, dance classes, singing lessons, guitar players, hacky-sack players, old men playing cards, and people flying kites. It was a whole ‘nother side of Beijing, and more pleasant than the “Silk Market”. We really enjoyed watching everyone enjoy their late afternoon activities. We had time to walk around the Temple and enjoyed looking at the history of it. It just had a new paint job in 2008 (same year as the Olympics… coincidence?) so it was stunning, and the colors were so vibrant, it truly is an immaculate treasure of Beijing.






When we finished there, we headed to dinner, to the Peking Duck feast! They served only duck as the meat option, with rice, soup, and veggies. The waitress showed us that we’re supposed to eat it rolled in a very thin flour tortilla, with cucumber and a barbecue sauce. That’s the best I’ve got to describe it. It was very good! I had imagine the duck to have a glaze to it, almost like a ham does, but it didn’t. I think it was the first time I ate duck. It tasted almost more like pork to me than poultry, but I don’t think George agrees with me on this. It was a nice meal, and we were glad to get back to the hotel at a decent hour. We met up with 2 other couples from the tour and went back to the Hutong district (via cab) to check out the night life. There were people playing hacky-sack and more tout’s trying to get us into their bar/restaurants. We had a good time listening to the very Emo-ish music of the Beijing singers, and then made it safely back to our hotel and fell fast asleep. There really wasn’t a dull moment on this trip!




Day 5 was our free day! There was nothing planned on our tour guide itinerary but Trevor was in the hotel lobby to give us directions to anywhere we wanted to go. 6 other people from our tour group were going to head the “Silk Market” which was similar to the Pearl market from the day before. Since we truly felt we had done almost everything there was to do in Beijing at that point (though we knew we hadn’t) we figured we’d tag along on that adventure… and adventure it was. We went into the situation knowing better of how to guard ourselves, what bargaining techniques would work, and what kind of prices to expect. We got there at 10:30 planned on meeting back with the group at 1:00. We had a grand time looking around. This one had about 4 floors, but was bigger than the market from the day before. We bargained our behinds off and got tons of fun stuff. When we met back with the group, we decided to have lunch there at the market, go back to the hotel and drop our bags off so we didn’t have to carry them all day and then plan something to do for the rest of the afternoon. We did all of this, and then they called and said they wanted to go back to the market for more bargaining fun. We couldn’t say no; we were too addicted. We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon and evening there until about 7ish. We finally made it back to the hotel, dropped off our goods from round 2, and then walked towards the local mall which was down the street, to find a restaurant for dinner. It was after 8 at this point and things seemed to be closing… we made it to the mall food court by 9 and ordered a semi-decent meal for our last in China. However, we did find a Coldstone ice cream there, where I got cake batter ice cream with marshmallows!!! SCORE! It was delicious!

We made it back to the hotel and spent a good hour packing all of our good deals into our suitcases. I’m still not sure how it all fit… but it did!

We had breakfast the next morning at 5:30am and then were off to the airport, where we made it to our gate in plenty of time, the flight home was seamless, (minus a few rude flight attendants) and made it to Tokyo. We took the two hour bus ride back to the base, and arrived around 5pm. I’m sure there are many witty stories involved on this day, but it’s too exhausting to get written down. The vacation came to an abrupt halt when I got back to the base at 5 and then had to attend my statistics class! UGH! What an awful way to end a vacation!

Here is a picture of our loot from China, and of Cheyenne wearing the "Pander hat"... which she really didn't care for! Hahaha!



We had a fabulous time in China. It really is an intriguing country. Before we went on the trip we heard a lot of people say “I’m glad I went, but would never go back.” But we’re glad we went, and would love to go back sometime in the future. The history and culture are so rich. It’s so weird to think of how young the USA is in comparison to so many of the countries here in Asia. The difference is thousands of years, and I actually find it wearing to think about.

That’s all for now!
Chels

P.S. Click on the link to my shutterfly page at the top right of the blog to see ALL of the pictures from our trip to China!