Day 4 - Great Wall & Ming Tombs

Today was a big day...

We woke to find it had snowed all night - it was amazing! Pity we didn't see it happening ourselves. We were booked on a tour today but started it late as the bus was having trouble getting to us in the snow. Our tour guide was Pan Jiao or otherwise known as Sally, and she told us some interesting facts on china, like there are 1800 new cars on the road everyday - no wonder they have massive traffic jams.

Our first stop was to the Ming Tombs. There were some great original buildings but nothing much else to see as the only tomb we went to is a mountain 1km in circumference and the emperor is buried 27m deep so you don't see anything. We then headed off to a Jade factory and were taught how to distinguish between real and fake jade. Then we had lunch there and we ate HEAPS. It was a banguet style with chicken, eggplant hot pot, sweet & sour pork & fish, vegies, soup, etc.

After lunch we went to the Great Wall to the Badaling section. At this point we were dying for the toilet so found the toilet block and i went first. They were of course squat - what a surprise. I made it in the doorway and was about to lock the door and realised the stench was too much to handle so i gave it a miss. I pre-warned Tam but she needed to go also. She didn't even make it in the doorway - haha, it was so funny. It took about 15 minutes to get rid of the stench from our nostrel's. From this point on we just held on!!! :) Tam and I took the cable car up the mountain so that we could then walk all the way to the top! Great views all the way along but it was quite dangerous as it was all covered in snow and very slippery. We also walked another section and had fun in the snow - laying in it, snow fights, sliding, writing in the snow, etc. Got heaps of photo's and had heaps of fun!!! It was a big highlight for me so far on the trip and we were really lucky to have the wall covered in snow as it made for great photo's.

We then headed off to a Chinese Medicine Institute where they gave foot massages & did a lecture on what they do. We didn't get the massage but Tam and I both had a check up by the chinese doctor who only felt our pulse and looked at our hands and then gave diagnosis. We are both healthy - but it seemed no-one else in the room with us was healthy and many people ended up buying medicine - was quite funny really. We then got back on the bus and waited forever for 3 Brazilian ladies to get back to the bus. At this point we had both had enough as these ladies talked loudly the entire trip - barely taking a breath in-between what felt like lectures on the bus - SO annoying, ahhhh. Eventually we headed back to the city centre and got dropped off so we could have dinner. Had Beef noodles, bacon & bok choy fried rice and beef dumplings (and a coke) all for $48￥, $8.70, so cheap!!! It was really delicious too. Then we stopped off at a little supermarket to get a couple of snacks and back to the hotel to call it a night!

Night xo

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