Day 3--China vacation

Day 3--Wednesday, April 11, 2012

   Yuan Hou Silk Factory--Government shopping.  They explained the life of silk worms and the whole process.  It was very interesting.  I really had the sense that some of our stops each day were a big sales pitch.  Most of the places we were taken were places that you only saw Americans.  Don't get me wrong, I was very happy to see these sites.  And, I did purchase some great items.  But I did understand the big picture.

 Ladies demonstrating the stretching of the silk quilt or duvet.  And I'm not sure how many times I heard "it will keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer".

 There was a huge floor room  that had everything silk that you can imagine.  From duvets, to duvet covers, pillows, shirts, ties and artwork.  And everything was just so beautiful.  I loved the duvet covers, especially the Asian themed ones.  But who am I kidding, we have 2 cats and they scratch everything.  I barely even looked at the gorgeous bedding.  Most of the people in our group bought silk quilts or duvet, including ME!  We also got 2 silk pillows, which we LOVE so far.  We haven't used the duvet yet since I'm waiting on my cover that I ordered from Amazon.  Since we were able to see the process and inspect the quality we really liked it.  And it was not very expensive at all.  But they made sure to tell us they could ship items as gifts anywhere!

 Beijing is filled with the coolest shaped buildings!  Since traffic is such a problem with the huge Beijing population, they've had to enforce many laws.  They only issue out a certain amount of car plates in a month.  Any the people who are lucky enough to have a car, there is one day in the week that they can't drive.  Depending on the last number on your plate, corresponds to which day.  This has helped with the traffic congestion.  Chinese people put a huge emphasis on numbers, 8 is a very lucky number.  And others are very unlucky.  To get a phone number ending with a lucky double 8 will be very expensive.  Other numbers that can be unlucky and associated with death, are free.

 Beijing Zoo.  The main stars of the zoo are the Giant Pandas.  We just missed their feeding time, so they were mostly all sleeping.

 Adorable!

 Look at my cutie-pie hubby!  Awwwww!  =)

 This monkey was provoked by the many people pounding on the glass.  It kept jumping out and I bet wanted to rip off some faces.  Poor thing!

 This guy has Michael Jackson's nose.  Sorry, but that's what I see!  I do love M.J!!

 People messing with the animals.

 These lemurs were just adorable!  I took so many pictures of them!  They were all clumped together trying to catch the sun rays.  There was a little baby that was soo cute!  Next door there was another cage and they were separated only by bars.  One just kept pacing back and forth, it was the cutest thing!

 Gorgeous Siberian Tiger

 Shun Chao Long Restaurant--lunch.

 Delicious!

 I just kind of mixed it all together.

 Qianmen Street--Shopping.  We pretty much just walked down the shopping street and didn't stop.  It seemed so very touristy.  HA!

 Michael Jordan is suing this company.  The Chinese Kanji even translates to be very close to saying Michael Jordan.

 Rolex--fake

 Old men playing chess at the grounds of The Temple of Heaven.

 The Temple of Heaven has the total area of 2,800,000 square meters.  It was the royal temple used by the emperors of Qing dynasty to "worship the heaven" and "pray the harvest".

 View of the city.  Ferris wheel in the background.

 Lils, I wish I could say this was a flash mob at the Temple of Heaven.  But they were just exercising or doing some Tai Chi.

 Hongqiao Market or The Fake Pearl Market.  5 story building jam packed with shopping vendors.  From knockoff purses, shoes, shirts, luggage, etc.  This was quite the experience!  The vendors were very pushy, and would yell to you, "Hey lady, LADY.  You want purse?  LADY, come here!"  You have to bargain with them and walk away to get your price.  And they hated to see an interested person walk away!  We spent a couple of hours in here and it gave me a headache.  I did buy a knockoff purse, it was pretty good quality.  Most things are made in China.  Real or fake, ha!

 Close up of the fake pearl

 Peking duck dinner.  Peking duck has the reputation of being the most delicious food Beijing has to offer.  Eating Peking Duck is seen to be one of the the two things you are absolutely supposed to do while in Beijing.  The other one of course is to climb the Great Wall.

 The ducks are force fed and kept in cages to restrain movement to fatten them up.  Duck is processed in several steps, rubbed with spices salt and sugar, then hung up for quite some time.  Then roasted in an oven or open fire until they are browned and rich with it's own grease.  Peking duck is always served in well cut slices, must be 120 (or 108, I forget which) pieces.  What a fantastic meal!

 Optional.  The Legend of Kung Fu Show--Red Theater. The brochure says- In an ancient temple we encounter a little boy.  Through practicing Kungfu and Zen he becomes a master and finally reaches the sacred goal of enlightenment.  The most exciting Kungfu show in the world!  That's a bold statement!

Very entertaining play.  But nothing can top the Acrobatic Show!  

 It was a very detailed play and had great backdrop scenes.  There were times when the "little monks" were doing flips on the stage.  They would actually flip and stand on their heads without using their arms. Crazy front flip kungfu break dancing moves! Hard to describe but truly amazing!

 Pictures/video was prohibited.  There was a lady running around in the theater shining lights in the eyes of anyone who dared to snap a picture!  They were really trying to to sell their souvenirs and dvd's of the show.  If you purchased something, you could get pictures taken with the cast.

 The bar of our hotel.  We went with 2 couples and had a great time.  But had the worst service in the bar, and we were the only ones in there!

 On the day of the Great Wall, where we had lunch I bought this bottle of booze.  It was strong and disgusting.  Eeeek. It was about $2.  We also had a full mini bar, which we did not succumb to the temptation!  Trust me, Berto really wanted a beer on the first night after traveling.  But trying to figure out the Yuan to USD was difficult.  I then later made my own cheat-sheet of money conversions.  It was a MUST!  Several ladies from the trip copied it to help them out.

 Berto wanted some late night room service since he was hungry.  I called and ordered him a hamburger and asparagus soup for myself.  The hamburger was supposed to have a fried egg on it.  Berto does NOT eat fried eggs.  I repeatedly asked to have the egg on the side.  With the language barrier, there was confusion.  She kept saying "fried egger"?  Yes, fried egg(er) on the side.  Silence...<.insert chirping crickets>  The conversation went on and on about the fried egger.  Then I just asked for NO egg.  But, I did end up with the egger on the side.  HA!

Day 2 in Beijing

Day 2--Tuesday, April 10

 Olympic National Stadium The "Bird's Nest".

 Cost $457 million dollars to construct.  At one point they stopped construction of it.  They were using too much of the world's steel supply.

 Because Beijing is so big, and has limited space for new constructions, the buildings are unique.

 Government shopping-Jade Factory.  Gilberto and I each got small pendants.

 Huge Jade carvings.  You could buy it, or a house.  HA!

 The Ming Tombs--Sacred Way.  There are 13 emperors circle-buried in the basin under Tianshou Mountain.  Darren told us about how an emperor was buried with his 20+ concubines, that were buried alive, standing up. I guess to greet him in the afterlife?  Sacred Way has 24 great stone animals and 12 ministers, each sculpted with a whole piece of stone.

 You're not supposed to climb the animals, but Darren told us we could try.  Some of them were huge.

 The Great Wall--Mutiyanu Peaks.  The Great Wall is a symbol of the dauntlessly indomitable spirit of the Chinese nation and a crystallization of the wisdom of the Chinese people in ancient times.  Or at least that is what my souvenir book says!

 Let me tell you...the wall kicked my ASS!!!  It is tough.  The very beginning of the path was by far the worst.  Because many people start there, the steps were very worn, steep, and uneven.  There were even points where the steps were so big, I couldn't make it up without using the railing to pull myself up.  I didn't take too many pictures and no video or panoramic shots! (I regret that!)  I want to say it's because I was "in the moment".  But really I needed one hand on railing and other hand to hold my small towel to wipe the sweat streaming from my face!  (No makeup on the wall climb day!)  So, Berto took most of the pictures.

 There were definitely moments that I didn't think I was going to make it.  We had about two hours to finish the path.  I really didn't want to be the last of our group, so that thought was in the back of my mind.  You can see people going back down.

 There are lots of people who we saw going back down without finishing.  And that's why the beginning part is so worn down.  I saw some girls with heels on!  I mean....really?!

 I really was taking in the moment here.  It was an amazing view!

 So happy to have had this fantastic experience!

The Wall stretches for 3,946 miles!!!  Holy!

 I haven't mentioned so far, but our whole trip had incredible weather.  We were so lucky.  On this day especially, there was a cool breeze.  There was one point later in the day that it rained for a few minutes, but it was while we were on the bus.  Other than that, perfect vacation weather.

 Very steep areas.  Straight down.  By this point my legs had a slight shake to them.

 Berto did great cheering me on.

 The end of the path was mostly all steps going down.  So that was a lot easier.  By this point, we were done.  This is a look back and I spotted some of our new friends from our group.  Yea, we weren't last!

 I was trying to gets artsy taking this pic.  With the flowers in the front.  HA!

 Done!  I'm not sure why Berto was doing jazz hands here.  HA!  I love this picture!!

 Government shopping--Beijing Pearl Market.  I've never been one to like pearls but thought the black pearls were really pretty.  They showed me a necklace and I liked it until they showed me the next quality up!  Ended up getting a necklace, ring and small earrings, they are a beautiful purple color.

 Dim sum dinner.  By this point we liked sitting with the only other 2 couples that were drinking beer, too.  (And the Japanese lady who was our guide until we got to China.)  HA!  After climbing the Wall, we really enjoyed some cold beer!  In this picture you can see the little girl on the trip, named Luna. She was very well behaved and pretty quiet.  The parents took turns holding her the whole trip in a sling.  I only saw her walk a little bit once!

Our Chinese tour guide, Darren!  He was awesome!  He could seriously answer any question.

So, day 2 was a looooooong day.  We headed out at about 6 am, and didn't get back to the hotel until 9 pm.  Once we got back, we had an optional massage scheduled. Full body acupressure work for 2 hours for $35, tip included!  WHAT?!  How can you pass that up? So, we hurried to shower and get our scratchies (pj's) on.  The two young Chinese girls came to our room, and worked on both of us on our bed/box spring.

They started off with a hot soak in a plastic bag for our feet.  It was brownish in color and smelled like tea.  They did some serious reflexology work in our feet.  Chinese acupressure massage is also called Tui na and Zhi ya which is pulling, stretching, kneading, pressing and pinching. Oh, and hitting!  Ha, they were hitting and slapping us around! The work in the feet and calves especially felt awesome after the long day.  But there were definite times where it was painful!  It was about 85% wonderful and 15% painful.  Poor Gilberto thinks it was 15% wonderful and 85% painful.  He was not a fan.

The setting was not relaxing.  We did have the tv on, and the girls were talking to each other almost non stop.  So Gilbert and I were talking too.  Then we switched to talking in Spanish to see if they noticed.  What was funny was that Darren had told us, relax...fall asleep.  They'll just continue with the massage.  There is NO way anyone could sleep through that!  We even ended up getting some bruises!  By the next day my legs were sore and I wasn't sure if it was more from the Wall or the massage!

We traveled to Beijing and got beat up by small Chinese girls!  J/K  =)