We started from the hotel very early today. We were supposed to meet the driver in the lobby at 7.30am; however, as we oversletpt again, I was not exactly ready at 7.30 and it took me some additional 10mins to get downstairs, which made our Austrian co-trippers a little unhappy. We were accompanied on this trip by two older couples - an Austrian and an Iranian one. The Austrian couple was extremely nice and cheerful, we had long discussions, they were very happy to hear that I enjoyed my 5 months in Vienna a lot and I love the famous Viennese coffee. He had been to Hong Kong on business and they decided to meet in Beijing and use the opportunity to visit the city. The Iranian couple hardly ever spoke, as it turned out that they did not really understand English at all... He spoke a few words of English while she did not speak the language at all.
I was so sleepy and the car journey usually induces me a deep sleep - so yes, it happened again :-) It really is like a drug - as soon as the wheels are set in motion, my eyes automatically close. Don't ask me why!!
Our first objective was a place where the Ming dinasty kings were burried. It is quite an impressive place, the location is beautiful as it's near the mountains. There obviously are several tombs but only one of them was excavated, apparrently due to the precarious preserving methods now in use. Lots of interesting objects (found in this tomb) were exhibited, all used by the emperor and his wife (items of clothing, jewelry, etc.). The visit was quite short which was good as it had already started to get hot.
Our guide spoke quite good English even though she did struggle with some of the words but overall the level of spoken English was satisfactory.
The next place on our list was a jade factory - we did not actually visit the factory itself, but we were shown into a big shop full of jade objects - both decorative and jewelry items. After we were explained the method of differentiating between real and fake jade, we were (of course!) invited to take a look around hoping that we would buy something. I must say that jade (and, generally speaking, semi-precious stones) are not my thing. I've always been and always will be a diamond girl - after all, diamonds are a girl's best friends, aren't they?
Because I am quite polite, I looked around faking a moderate interest in the exhibited items. As I happened to take a closer look at the jade bracelets section, several Chinese girls immediately surrounded me and started to take out various items and make me try them on. All this while cheerfully praising the qualities of jade stone, of course (it's good for the heart, it goes with my skin, my eyes, etc.). I had quite a difficult time explaining them that I am not really into jade and avoiding to offend them at the same time. So I told them that I indeed liked the bracelets but I would never wear such a thing myself. I pleaded and explained but nothing worked. Their heart was set on selling something so they were very pushy. If you had told them that you did not really like a certain item, they would have immediately moved on to something else, trying to convince you of the qualities of the next item. It was absolutely horrible. I told Alex to get me out of there, he simply told them "no, we are not interested to buy, this is not what my wife would usually wear" , he tried everything himself but they were still very persistent. In the end, we made our way out of the shop and into the van and, as we were feeling relieved and confident that we were off the hooks at last, the van's doors opened once again and two shop assistents pop their heads inside, having brought the infamous bracelet with them, and started to plead with my husband again. It was simply too much. Alex just said " no, we don't want it!" and they finally understood. My god, it was the toughest scene of this kind I have witnessed so far and I've been to places like Egypt and Turkey before!!
So half an hour and a grumpier guide later (as, obviously, she would have received her commission had the sale been performed!) we were on our way to the most important attraction on the menu - the Great Wall.
The Wall itself is not that impressive - its setting is very impressive - the mountains, the woods the river did the trick. It was overcast today, which was good as there was no sun and the heat was thus under control, but the smog was there and we could not have a clear picture. We climbed the wall up to a certain level - it is quite steep and the steps are quite high so it ends up being very tiring exercise. I had to take short breaks from time to time and Alex took the opportunity to take a few interesting pictures of me climbing, resting, very red in the face with effort, etc.
Afterwards we were taken to a so called "cloisonne" factory - a place where they make all sorts of engraved pots, vases and other decorative objects. Here we were also supposed to have lunch - tranditional Chinese. So after we were explained the art of producing these decorative objects (which was quite impressive, as they are entirely hand made!), we were invited to have lunch. It's maybe worth mentioning that I saw small children (maybe 9 or 10 years old) working in that workshop. It's hard work, I believe it's damaging to the eyes after a certain period.
The lunch was nice and tasty - the Iranian couple disappeared somewhere else as they did not eat pork so we were left with the Austrians who made quite enjoyable conversation and were actually very funny. At the end of the meal we had the opportunity to "compare" the liquid we got as coffee with the Viennese melange... Quite interesting indeed! Personally I did not really know what I ate (this was what I feared most!!) but whatever it was, it was quite tasty.
After lunch, Alex had a timid inclination to buy a vase that had peakocks engraved on it - I found it awful and did my best to prevent him from buying it. And I succeeded!!
The highlight of the trip was a visit to a Chinese traditional medical centre. Alex had been to China before and had been taken to this kind of centre so we had a good idea as to what to expect. However, I felt a bit scared to enter this hospital. We were invited into a room where a doctor gave us what I felt to be an awful long and extremely boring presentation about the differences between the Chinese traditional way of treating various illnesses and the Western way. To cut a long story short, the Chinese seem to view the entire body as a unity, a single entity and they consider all organs to be interconnected while the Westerners tend to treat each organ separately. He then explained the three pillars of the Chinese traditional medicine - the acupuncture, physical exercises and herbal treatment. He then went on saying that there are Chinese specialists who can tell the illness one person suffers from just by taking that person's pulse, checking their tongue, etc. I just stared in total disbelief (oh, my savage self!!) and could hardly refrain from asking him about the bears that are raised in China in appalling conditions just for their blatter substances that are extracted from them and used as medicine. These poor creatures are kept in cages not bigger then their own bodies, they cannot move, they have a seringe in their blatter for all their lives... They simply die very soon or, the ones that are set free, are forever lost, they cannot go back to a normal life, they are forever handicapped. It's a very sad and very true story which I would have wanted to find out more about...
Anyway, Alex had his pulse checked and some pills were prescribed to him which he had to buy on the spot. The Austrians bought some medicine too and the Iranians wanted to but they spoke no English so it was very difficult to get the message of the learnt old lady (pompously called "the professor") accross to them so... they had to give it a miss.
It's probably easy to imagine how relieved I was to step out of the medical centre and in to our van which took us to our hotel (our small paradise on foreign land!). My friends can rest assured that I am struggling really hard to keep an open mind. And I am successful! Yes, I don't like it but yes, it really IS a very interesting land!!
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