8 Days with Shu Fey in China- Monday

---

8 Days with Shu Fey in China



Monday



Last night, we found the “Princess Desk” in the hotel and got our final itinerary and our name badges on blue ribbons that we will be wearing for the week.



Monday morning dawned sunny and cold. Today is the first day of our 8 day land tour. Today we will meet the other 42 people that we will be spending the week with, as well as our tour guide.



We donned our ribbon badges and headed to breakfast where we saw a lot of people wearing the same ribbons. People with ribbons started smiling at other people with ribbons… the bonding process has started ;-).



In the lobby we meet our main tour guide Shu Fey, or her “American” name, “Phyllis”. She speaks amazingly good English (thank goodness!). She will be with us for the entire week where ever we go. We have two large tour busses for the 44 of us. 18 Americans and 4 Australians will join Shu Fey on bus Y-1 and 22 Australians and British will join Tao on the Y-2 bus. Lots of room to spread out on both busses.



First stop the Great Wall of China at Badaling. It is about an hour and a half out of Beijing. On the way Shu Fey tells us a little about herself… she lives in Beijing, has a 2 year old son, is in her 30’s and has never been to an English speaking country. She majored in English at the University but stated speaking when she was 2-3. She will have bottles of water on the bus for us the entire week. We will fly between our destinations and local tour guides and drivers will be there waiting for us at each location. Included are all of our meals, flights, busses, local tour guides, drivers, Yangtze Riverboat, etc. A week of seeing a great country and being taken care of (LOL). Works for us!



As we near Badaling, Shu Fey points out portions of the Great Wall that are coming into view. WOW! The wall climbs up and down over the highest mountain peaks all around us. It looks tiny from our seats on the bus. Finally we arrive at a large bus parking lot but our driver takes us right up to the little tourist town and drops us off. He will return to the parking lot and look after our “stuff” that we leave on the bus.



We walk uphill through the little town; the Great Wall is snaking its way over the hills to the left and right of us as we walk towards an underpass through the wall to a plaza where there are small shops and you can buy your tickets to climb the wall. Shu Fey goes to get our tickets while we stand there gawking up at this 600 year old part of the wall. Tickets in hand, we go through the turn styles. To the right, we are told, is a little easier climb than going to the left. We choose the right ;-) We climb the uneven steps, some a few inches high some as tall as 8-10 inches until we find ourselves on the top of… THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. It is overwhelming. We can’t even grasp that we are here. It is a cold day in the low 40’s with wind whipping around the wall. We don’t care, we are not cold, we are in awe. There are a great many tourists from all over the world. Everyone has an I-Phone or camera and is taking thousands of pictures of themselves and the wall. EVERYONE is polite and staying out of each others pictures, or offering to take pictures for perfect strangers ;-) We make our way up, up, up the wall to the first tower. In the tower, we stop to catch our breath and debate going on as it is quite steep, but what the heck we’re here, let’s go… so we make our way up to the second tower (North tower). Because of all the wind the skies are blue and we can see forever. After catching our breath (again ;-) we contemplate going to the 3^rd tower but as we looked up to it, the road is extremely steep. Dang, let’s go! Pulling our jackets close we forge ahead towards the North Tower on the somewhat slippery rock pavement until it just gets too steep for us to continue. We stop for pictures and to just breathe and feel really small and humble at such an amazing place.



We are astounded by the engineering feats it took to build the Great Wall. Even though there were literally over a million people working to build the wall over many many years, it is still staggering to think of how they even surveyed the direction over the mountain tops-how did they choose one path up the mountain ridges over another? Something to contemplate on our next bus ride ;-)



Time to head down to the coffee shop to warm up. Thank heavens for our blue name tag ribbons. We do not know all the people traveling with us yet, but can identify them by the ribbons. Very helpful ;-) After gathering at the souvenir/coffee shop to warm up our group headed down the hill for a windy walk to the bus.



Next stop is about an hour away, toward Beijing, for lunch at a Cloisonné factory. Part of our tour is stopping at places where you can shop. We are sure there will be many of these over the next 8 days. We don’t mind because each time there is a little lecture about how they make whatever it is (jewelry, jade, and silk, Cloisonné, bronze…whatever) and we learn a little something. Today is no different. We learn about the making of Cloisonné jewelry, vases, beads, etc. We don’t buy anything-we are not great souvenir shoppers (smiles)! Lunch today and all week will be Chinese (of course) and at big round tables with lazy Susan’s in the middle. We have been eating with chopsticks for a number of weeks now so are pretty good at it. However, if you just don’t want to do it, you can get a fork ;-) We are amazed that most of our group is using this trip to improve their chops stick skills ;-). There is a tremendous amount of food to choose from and no one walks away hungry, ever!!!



We all slide back onto the bus for the ride back to Beijing and a stop at the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was built in 1750. It was burned during the Opium Wars by the British and French in retaliation as the Chinese had burned their opium warehouses. It was re-built in 1888 during the Qin (pronounced CHIN) Dynasty. The palace sits on the shores of a manmade lake with beautiful Weeping Willows all around and many small, beautiful boats for tourists to use.



After having free time too walk around he grounds and take pictures, we gather with Shu Fey and leave the palace grounds for a long walk down the street to catch up with our bus. Beijing has 27 million people and parking a bus (and driving a bus in the traffic) is quite the challenge-we sure would not want to be doing it!!!. Also, if we haven’t mentioned it before, pedestrian and bicycles (of any sort) DO NOT have the right-a-way. Fortunately, we have a “most excellent” bus driver. ;-) He drives the bus like a sports car through the traffic…Our driver has double parked on a corner with the door open. We board as quickly as possible.



Next stop… a rest at our hotel. At 6:30 we re-gather in the lobby for a trip to a famous Peking Duck Restaurant about 20 minutes away. What a fabulous dinner. You did not have to have duck if you didn’t want it as there were many, many things to choose from ;-). But…virtually everyone at least wanted to taste Peking Duck in Peking (Beijing). Dinner over and back to our hotel to put our bags out in the hall before 11pm. One great thing about a tour, everything is taken care of for you, just follow along and have an amazing trip… nice. ;-)



Tomorrow: Flying to Xi’an (pronounced C-AHN) and the Terra Cotta Warriors.

---

Photos

Cope Great Wall
Great Wall at Badaling

Jean Great Wall
Great Wall and North Tower at Badaling

Cloisonné Painting
Painting a Vase on Tin

Summer Palace
Beijing, China