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Published: June 23rd 2006
Let's bypass breakfast. You know the spiel.
On the way to the Emperial Summer Palace we drove by where all the opening ceremonies for the Olympics and track and field will take place. They have started work on it and it is amazing. I have a picture but the haze today was very thick and the picture was taken from the bus. It looks like a HUGE birds nest. It is not completed yet, but it is enough so that it is impressive.
After that we went to a silk rug factory where the process for creating silk rugs by hand was demonstrated. Of course, there was shopping opportunities. A high quality rug can take a couple of years for three women working continually to complete. A friend I have met on the trip was looking at a full size medium quality yellow rug for $6,200. I was looking at a small probably 3 by 3 foot green rug and it was listed at $900. We were offered huge discounts, but not enough that I thought I could afford it. BTW-my friend passed on hers too.
Then on to the Summer Palace. The
Summer Palace. We walked around and looked at various highlights. The most interesting one being the "marble boat" that doesn't float. Matter of fact it was never intended to float. The Marble Boat was built in 1755 in Chinese style, imitating the sailing boats which Qianlong (1711-1799) took during his inspection to Southern China. As an old saying goes, "water can carry the boat as well as overturn it," meaning that water symbolizing the common people can uphold the royal boat, or it can swamp the boat. Emperor Qianlong had the huge Marble Boat fastened in the water to indicate the steadfast rule of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). According to our guide this Emperor was known for her extravagant ways that were to detriment of her people.
We ate there as the emperor would have. The color yellow was reserved for the royalty and could not be used by anyone else. All our china was a beautiful yellow color as well as the walls. It was very similar otherwise including the lazy susan used to servce the food.
Then for the highlight of the Beijing tourist attractions for me, The Great Wall. We access the Great Wall at Badaling. Badaling is located at Yanqing County, more than 70 kilometers northwest from the center of Beijing City. It took about one and a half hours to get there. We started seeing it off in the distance for about a half hour before we reached our access point. As far as you can see in any direction it snakes through the mountains. We arrived at 3:45pm and were told to return the bus by 5:45pm. Another thing that was amazing was the breeze that was there. It has been stifling hot during part of the day sometimes reaching well into the 90's. (Did I forget to mention that air conditioning is not widely used over here? Our hotel is air conditioned, but many of the places we went have only inside room air conditioners and not every room has these. These are air conditioners that stand upright in the corner of the room.) It was a good thing there was a breeze too, because there were parts of the wall that are incredibly steep. Some friends and I had heard that turning to the left would lead to a portion of the wall that had fallen down and not been restored. I wanted to be able to say we had walked to the end of the Great Wall. Little did I know it was steeper than had we turned to the right. It was so steep that coming back down there was a spot that I could not see the bottom steps from the top. Another thing that was absolutely shocking was The Great Wall should be called the Great Mall. We were bombarded by vendors at every tower for four of the seven towers we entered. Remember I referred to the vendors as being like fruit flies. Here they were again. They would follow you and constantly ask you to look at stuff. I can not even imagine carrying the merchandise up that wall. That part was annoying, but it paled in annoyance when I thought about the fact I WAS WALKING ON THE GREAT WALL.
One of the gentlemen that was walking in our group said it was a dream come true for him. I replied I had never even dared to dream it. Truly a highlight of my life.
For supper we went to a four star restaurant for hot pots. This is a mongolian based dish where each patron has a little pot (similar to a fondue pot) and the lazy susan is loaded down with vegetables, thinly sliced beef and lamb. The pot contains a meat based broth and you place whatever you want to eat in the broth to cook. It only takes a couple of minutes for most of the items. Then using your chopsticks you dip the cooked items out of the pot and dip them in various sauces. I didn't love the sauces so I bypassed that most of the time. Then to your plate. For those of you who have eaten at one of the area Mongolian restaurants it will sound a little similar. This particular restaurant had singers who gave us our own private show. The music they sang was VERY shrill, but you got use to it pretty quickly and some of our party even started oop, ooping to it. If you don't know what that is, it is when you raise your arm and pump it shouting oop, oop. It is a young thing. The music though shrill had a great beat.
Tomorrow morning we are to be downstairs at 6. We are to catch a plane to Xi'an. I would upload pictures, but again my battery is dead. I will charge my battery tonight.
One last thing. It has been wonderful here with Internet Access. It is fairly cheap in your room at $30 for four nights of broadband access. I heard from some of the others that there is a business center upstairs that you pay for by the minute and it only has dialup. The rate is twice what I have paid.
But I do not know what access I will have in Xi'an and Shanghai. If you do not hear from me then know that I can not get access for some reason. I will be back on as soon as I can.
Bambi
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Pat Hardee
non-member comment
Enjoying
I am really enjoying your trip. I would absolutely love to be there with you!!!