Day 33 started off bright and early, around 7:15. We had to get up and out the door for our guided tour, which was supposed to start at 8. Around 7:40, Jessica and I went downstairs to try to grab breakfast, only to find out that there was no breakfast. Apparently the dumplings yesterday had been a special thing for the New Year.
At 8, there was no sign of the driver for our guided tour, so Dom went upstairs to try to call, getting no response. Nick tried to call, and immediately got a response. Apparently the guide and the driver were stuck in traffic, and were coming. About 10 minutes later, they came. The guide introduced himself as Wallace, and we chatted on the way to our first stop, the Jade Factory. Getting there, we got to see a worker carving a jade piece, and then she took us back into a little museum area where she explained the history of jade. After that, we were taken back into a showroom where they had lots of jade for sale and they taught us how to distinguish jade from glass. (Pro Tip for jade buyers: jade will not scratch without anything less than diamond, but glass scratches very easily, including against other glass.) I was hesitant on buying stuff, but they guaranteed that their products were all real jade, and they had a buy one get one sale, so I gave in, getting two bracelets and two zodiac animal figures (one of each was for someone else). I also got a free keychain which said "love" in Chinese characters. But wearing my orange jade bracelet, I was very, very happy with my purchases.
Made entirely of one piece of jade!
After a bit of a drive, in which Wallace told us lots of interesting facts, such as how the dragon represented the emperor and the phoenix (which is my favorite animal) represented the empress, we were at one of the entrances to the Great Wall. He also explained the significance of some of the dragon statues. We found out that the one stepping on the world is the male (holding the world together) and the one stepping on a demon is the female (keeping the world safe).
The entrance we went in had lots of steps.....it was actually climbing a mountain (no joke). And it was freezing, and got more and more windy as we climbed the mountain, but the view was breathtaking, and now I can say that I've climbed one of the seven wonders of the world!
"If we do not reach the Great Wall, we are not heroes." Mao Zedong
As we climbed the mountain, there were more surprises. There was a snack shop in the middle, as well as toilets. When I went to get a drink of water, ice crystals kept forming on the top of my water bottle. And the more we climbed, the more steps it seemed like we had left....we thought we had one more tower left to climb up to....it was actually three. At some point, Wallace had left us to go back to the car and wait for us to make our way up and down the mountain, giving us until 12:10 to get back down to the other side of the mountain.
Marker near each of the lookout points along the wall
Jessica found that it was VERY windy on top of the Great Wall
UC sign on top of the Great Wall (since we're Bearcats abroad)
Once we reached the top of the mountain, we breathed a sigh of relief , and took lots of pictures. One of the things about the Great Wall, the steps are different heights, so it was hard to get my feet up there sometimes on the higher steps (and I was running out of breath quickly as I often do with heavy physical exertion). On the way down, it was falling down some of the bigger steps that was an issue, but not as big of a problem for me.
When we were almost down, Wallace called us to see where we were at (yes, there is service on the Great Wall of China) and we told him that we were nearly there.
We got back around noon (earlier than the time Wallace had set), we bought a commemorative medal to celebrate, engraving our name in it with an oversized nail, and they took us on a two minute drive to an authentic Chinese restaurant. Wallace said he had only been there one other time before, but he started to order a few different dishes for us. Him and the driver also got different dishes, that they let us try as well. We ended up getting kung pao chicken, a pork and onion dish, and a fresh trout. We were pulled out of the dining area back into the kitchen to watch them get the fish out of the container with a net (the first one had a hole though) and once caught, she slammed the fish against the floor several times to knock it unconscious before weighing it. It weighed 3 kilos, so we were definitely getting a lot of fish. And it (and the other food) was all delicious.
After this, we were asking the driver to go by the Olympic Village, because it turns out that they hadn't planned to go by (even though it was on the tour route....). But the village area was really closed all of the time, so we just got to take pictures from the outside. We got to see the main stadium area, and a couple of the towers as well.
Science museum we drove by
Main Olympic Stadium and another tower
After we drove by, we went to a tea ceremony place, where the lady showed us the art of Chinese tea, letting us try five different teas, a jasmine tea, a ginseng tea, a older tea in a pellet called peor tea, a black tea, and a fruit tea. The last two (but especially the fruit tea) were very sweet without sugar. She gave us some of the history and uses for each type of tea. Ginseng is for health benefits, like improved memory and lower blood pressure and jasmine is to destress at the office, for example. She also showed this contraption that she called a "pee-pee boy" that would pee out water if you poured hot water on its head. She also said that if you bought something, you would get one free, which was strange....but we just rolled with it. Then she took us back into the showroom to buy some tea. After much contemplation, I decided to buy a variety pack of tea, and a teacup with a handpainted phoenix because I don't have anything from China with a phoenix on it yet.
Peacock tea set
After this, we went to the Silk Factory, which was similar to the Jade Factory, although they were more in depth with things. They talked about the life cycle of the silkworm and how the silk was extracted from the cocoon, showing one of the machines used for the extraction and weaving process. After that, there were workers actively stretching some silk in order to make it more and more toward the finished product. Then she showed us some silk inside a cotton sheet, as well as a silk bedspread. Afterwards we were free to wander around the shop. I thought about getting a silk dress or robe, but they were really expensive.
I ended up settling on three scarfs, one for me, and two for others. Mine was orange, and was one that Jessica had pointed out to me. I was very glad, because before that, I couldn't find the right one for myself. I got a silk handkerchief free (and found out that these places really love to give people free gifts....great marketing ploy, I guess).
They rushed us back to the hotel, and then they asked for additional money, which we thought was for tolls, but was actually a tip for them. After paying, we headed upstairs, chilled for a couple hours while I also finished my philosophy homework, and then played cards and watched videos for a couple hours with the boys. Afterwards, I headed back, trying to watch a video on the better wifi, but the website was messing up, so I gave up and worked on my blog before sleeping, knowing that I could sleep in the next day.
-Zoe
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