Lunar New Year - Tour Package

The next morning, we woke bright and early to begin a long day of touring. Through the hotel, we booked a Great Wall tour that was supposed to last the better part of a day. We were told that the tour would drop us off at a place on the wall, pick us up at another and make a few stops at museums and factories along the way. While this was the truth, it was not the whole truth....

The tour package ended up being an entire day event that made 7 unwanted stops at different government owned and operated tourist traps and landmarks. Our guide told us that the total price for the tour was so cheap because the government was paying part of our way in exchange for spending an allotted amount of time in each factory/museum/gift-shop/trap.

Our explanation of the tour also made it sound like it was going to be on a standard tour bus, etc, but that also turned out to be false. The 'tour bus' was nothing more than an old, Chinese van with 3 bench seats, a scary driver behind the wheel and a guide sitting shotgun. We were the second and third passengers to be picked up out of seven total. It was cozy and uncomfortable.

Views of the sketchy neighborhood Kelly's Courtyard was located in:

Where Chinese office chairs go to die

Big Pimpin'

World's Largest Drainage-cicle

Our 'Tour Bus'

Stop #1
The Jade Factory

This stop consisted of a brief introduction into the art of jade carving. It might have been interesting (almost) had we drawn a different tour guide from the jade factory lottery. Our factory guide was an older man with terrible breath that kept referring to us as 'my friends' and making us move closer and closer to his rotten mouth. It was terrible.

The Showroom/Store

Jack & Michael

Jack & Michael (whom introduced themselves collectively as 'Michael Jackson') were the best of our small group. Michael, the one that did most of the talking, was hilarious and Jack had a really great laugh. Also, they weren't weird, so that made them much better than the others.

Stop #2
Gate to the Ming Tombs

The guide didn't explain why we stopped here to take pictures or the significance of the tombs in anyway, so we don't know the importance of these tombs or this park, but why pass up a photo op?


This picture is the only reason we know that this was a gate to the Ming Tombs...

The Great Wall!

Stair climbing began at 11:00 AM. We didn't begin the descent until a little after noon. It was a solid hour of walking up a shoddy, uneven staircase. It was awesome!

Tourists...

Not a neck brace

Love Locks

Love Locks (or Love Padlocks) is a tradition in China (and more recently other parts of the world) in which a couple locks a padlock onto something in a high-traffic public/touristy area symbolizing the public declaration of the 'locking' of their souls together for eternity.

Guard Tower

We're on the freaking Great Wall of China!

The view from midway

The standard warnings:

SPEAKING CELLPHONE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED WHEN THUNDERSTORM
Heart cerebral disease sufferer, ascend the Great Wall to please watch for.

The only tie on the Wall

Almost there...

The Top!

We finally made it!
Now for the scary part, going down...

Another scary part: The Chinese people...

Stop #3
The Silk Factory

Here, they took us through the process of creating a silk-down comforter, beginning with the silk worm larvae. Despite not wanting to be there, nor caring, the demonstration was still actually pretty interesting.

Stretching the silk to create a comforter, layer by layer

Judy with a 5 o'clock shadow

Annoying Girl, Arol, Michael and Jack
She was awful, and Arol was weird (as you can tell from his hair)

Stop #4
Dr. Tea

Our fourth stop was at the Dr. Tea showroom for a traditional Chinese tea tasting. Dr. Tea is one of the major tea distributors in China, and it's government run, so needless to say, it was a large facility. There were tasting rooms, display and museum-like sections, and even a huge gift shop full of tea accessories you never knew existed. We arrived towards closing time so thankfully they skipped the tour for us and ushered us right into a tasting room.

Seated at the table, ready to begin the tastings

Our weird, robotic tasting guide

Beautiful

Stop #5
The Beijing Olympic Training Center

After loading up on tea, we headed to the Olympic Training Center for some foot massages and a little reflexology. It was weird, yes, but a nice stop after a full day on your feet and 90 minutes of stairs!

The pre-massage foot-tea soak

Our training center guide

She (according to her) was the Chinese representative during the 2008 Summer Olympics that explained the concept of foot reflexology to all the foreign athletes that were there competing. Since then, she has been explaining it to van-fulls of tourists coming from the Great Wall...



All the pressure points in the foot, and the areas of the body that they affect.

Our Masseuses

Stop #6
The Pearl Factory

By the time we finished our foot massages and got out of the training center, it was getting pretty late, so we assumed we were done. Of course, we were wrong. The next stop brought us to a pearl jewelry studio, which like the jade and silk factories, was filled with shit that we didn't want. They did, however, do an oyster shucking/pearl finding demonstration for us that was pretty interesting. They had an unopened freshwater pearl and made all of us guess how many pearls were going to be in it. Our guesses were between 1-10. Most of us guessed low and the '10' guess was given jokingly. When the lady finally shucked it, it had 22 pearls inside of it! Who knew that was possible?
She would not leave Judy alone. She was set on having Judy (and her friends and family) pearled out!

Here is the highlight of this stop:
The men's room @ the pearl factory

Handicap people don't need/deserve privacy, obviously...

...and when Andrew went to wash his hands, he found this in the sink... What?!? The best part is that there wasn't a coi pond outside of this place. Someone brought this dead coi in and decided that the bathroom sink was the best place to store it.

Stop #7
The Olympic Green

Once we had finally spent our allotted time in the pearl factory, we headed out to our last stop which was alongside the Olympic Green so that we could take pictures of Beijing's National Stadium, the Pangu 7 Star Hotel and the National Aquatics Center. But, it was dark and we weren't really close to any of them, so here are some way better pictures courtesy of Google Images:

The Beijing Bird's Nest
Designed for 2008 Summer Olympics
US$423 million well spent, China!

Although it is one of a handful of 7 star hotels around the world, because it's in China, rates begin around $250/night. Sure, one night at the Pangu would buy us 10 nights at the place we stayed, but that is really reasonable considering it's one of the most luxurious in Asia.

The Water Cube

Like the Bird's Nest, the Water Cube was constructed for the 2008 Olympic games and ringing up at over US$1.5 billion, cost China 3 times what the Bird's Nest did! The building then, in 2010, underwent a US30$ million remodel to turn it into a water park in an attempt to get some use out of it.


By this point, we were completely toured-out. We had no clue how far we were from our hostel, or how long it would take to drop everyone off, so we just ended up walking back to the van, grabbing our stuff and ditching the tour. All we wanted was a stiff drink and a seat that wasn't a folding bench in a cramped van. Fortunately, the area around the stadium was surrounded by hotels, so we knew we could easily fulfill our two desires.

While walking and trying to decide on a direction to head, we spotted an Intercontinental Hotel. The Intercontinental Hotel in Seoul is where we have our Wing & Wine Night, so we figured that the Beijing Intercontinental probably wouldn't let us down. We didn't find an all you can eat and drink bar waiting for us inside, but we did find a pretty delicious Brazilian buffet restaurant.

The vegetables and starches were up at the buffet and...

...the employees walked around with swords and skewers to slice meat right onto your plate! We were pleased and painfully stuffed when we finally decided to make our way home for the night.