Beijing

Friday

We started early and drove to the Ming Tombs, where I had about an hour to explore. Then the highlight -- was taken by taxi to the great Wall at Badaling. Because we had to fit in so many more stops to tourist shops to spend my hard earned money, the guide only gave me three quarters of an hour to climb the Great Wall after all that. However, by then I had learned that they couldn't go anywhere anyway without you as I was the only person on the tour, so I took my time and figured I would just cop her wrath at the end. Walked up the steps and slopes of the wall for several kilometres. It is much harder than it appears as most of it is steps. Saw several people openly graffitiing the wall, and it looks like the done thing to leave your name imprinted.

Even though I was walking for several kilometres uphill the number of people seemed to be getting more and more, until I spied the chairlift that was taking them to a station at the top of the hill several kilometres ahead of me. Some of them were exploring from there and others were walking back. Was never really deserted and hard to get a photograph of yourself without people everywhere, but it was a great experience and absolutely awe inspiring. After taking lots of photos, I eventually walked down and found my annoyed guide who proceeded to whisk me off to another department store. This one was like a huge Myers store with lots of glass cabinets arranged in rows. Behind every glass counter were several shop assistants. Turned out I was the only tourist in the whole shop and there were over 50 shop assistants waiting patiently behind the counters to sell me their goods. As I walked up and down past the counters they would scurry around and put out their silks all their jades or whatever it was they were trying to sell as I walked blithely past.

Seems the most important rule is that all tourists must spend at least three quarters of an hour in each shop that they taken to, and so even though I had finished in 10 minutes my guide made me stand there for three quarters of an hour. Would have been much better spent at the Wall.

While driving back to Beijing in the taxi, I asked my guide if we could go for a meal of Peking Duck instead of the usual dinner they had lined up. I planned to ask Jenny, and they were very enthusiastic until I realised that they expected me to pay for them too. When I declined they suddenly lost interest and decided that I could organise my own dinner myself. So when I returned I rang Jenny, took a taxi to the University, picked up, and let her choose a nice restaurant for tea.