Hello Everyone

We have spent a few days site seeing and eating in Beijing. The Chinese
people have been very nice and do speak English in most tourist locations,
such as restaurants, hotels, and sites. It is a nice modern city with
inexpensive and delicious food. A large portion main entree at a nice
restaurant will be $3 or less. At the first restaurant we ordered way too
much assuming that the $1 hot and sour soup or $1 mix veggies was appetizers
or side dishes. Oh no way we ended up with 6 large main entrees and looked
foolish. The soup alone could serve 20 servings. We have visited the
Forbidden City, Summer Palace and the Hutong district, which is an older
winding alley section of town. All were nice and entertaining but not as
impressive as I expected. Unfortunately, I think after seeing the monasteries
of India and Temples of Angkor Wat the sites of Beijing seem less impressive.
That is one downfall of touring so many places at once, you do not appreciate
each place as much as if you went to one single area. The summer palace had
a nice park/garden to walk around and escape the busy congested city.

Yesterday we hired the Chinese International Travel Service (CTIS) to take
give us on a tour of the Great wall. The CITS is the government run company
that controls must of the tours in China. The public transportation to the
great wall is more difficult than it should be and probably that is by design.
We were unable to find any private tour companies though they supposedly
exist. I guess this is an example of a communist country. The CITS tour
with lunch included is priced not much more expensive than the public
transportation and non-tour route, therefore that filled us with great
suspicion. We went with the CITS tour and soon discovered that the catch was
that they took us to two different tourist money trap locations and provided
us with a poor lunch and the pick up and drop off process of all the
tourist clients took hours. We still thought at the end of the day it was a
good deal probably because we were lucky enough to be one of the Last
picked up at 8:30am and first dropped off at 6:30pm. A Swiss lady we
befriended was the first picked up at 5am and therefore had a 3.5 hour ride
of picking up other clients. The first stop on the tour was the Ming
tombs, which was a grave yard for past Emperors. It was interesting to see
the replicas of the Emperors jewelry, crowns, and ceremonial outfits.

Then the tour guide announced that because "Today" we had only a small group
of 20 tourist that everything has gone much faster than she expected and we
have time to waste, so she will give us a bonus tour stop at the Traditional
Chinese medical clinic. This clinic has been in existence for 600 years. A
doctor who looked about 600 yrs old examined us by checking our pulse,
tongue, eyes and facial color. After checking my pulse he asked if I was
experiencing back, neck and shoulder pain. Because of language barrier, I
just stated no, though I was thinking “of course I do, because I have been for
months carrying a 35 lbs pack around”. Then he looked at my eyes and tongue
and determined I looked tired and asked if I felt tired even though I have
been getting sleep. Again for simplicity I stated no, though I was thinking “for
months I have had a different bed every 3/4 days and usually the bed was rock
hard with a pillow that was more like a bing bag and there are various
strange noises outside my room keeping me wake such as cows mooing, cars
honking, foreign voice shouting, construction noises and so on”. So the
doctor prescribed me a $100 dollar/one month supply of traditional herbal
medicine. How insightful of him to gather from my pulse these common
travelers aching symptoms. I did not buy the medicine.

After this stop, our tour guide stated that we still had extra time so she
would throw in another bonus tour stop at the Jade factory that happens to
be right next door to our restaurant. So we looked around at the Jade
factory with many ladies telling me how good the green jade looked next to
my pinkish pale skin ( and to their Chinese skin and to Mark's skin uhm?).

The lunch table could fit 10 of foreigners ( 2 Italians, 4 Spanish, 1 UK, 1
Swiss and us 2 Americans) all diving into the lunch dishes that quickly spun
by on a lazy Suzan platform. I am horrible with using chop sticks and was
very embarrassed that these 9 other people who also use a fork as their
normal eating tool could be so good at using the chopsticks. The other travelers
shoveled food down in massive amounts in no time while I managed to get about
5 pieces in my mouth. My eating area was such a mess from my missed attempts
it looked like a 2 year old had just ate there. However, the few bites I got
was enough to tell me that this food was poor quality and had no flavor. Not
to mention the fact that these 8 strangers had slobbered all over their chopsticks
and then stuck them back into the common serving dish for another helping.
I lost my appetite and kept thinking how soon we forgot about SARS.
Though we had so much time to waste at the tourist trap places,
we now had to rush lunch and get on our way.

At the great wall we had two hours to wrestle tourist crowds. The tour
group made us take these sliding cars, which look like an amusement park
ride up the steep mountain to the wall. Therefore, every lazy, old, young,
and out of shape person also chose this section of the wall so to take the
ride up instead of walking. In addition, most tourist have to take a
similar CITS tour and have the same schedule that put them at the wall
around 1:30pm. The crowds were difficult to navigate especially because the
wall has many parts that are not steps but slanted steep ramps designed
to make it very difficult for the enemy to approach. They succeeded in this
design goal. The views were so beautiful that the people and path obstacles
seem to melt away. The wall goes on forever in every direction up and down
steep mountains.

I know my style of humor is to nit-pick and poke fun of the cultural
differences or things that did not go the way I expected or the challenges.
But that is all just part of the fun adventure of traveling, I hope my post
do not sound like a bunch of complaints from a disgruntled tourist. I had a
great day on this tour, how could I not, I was examined by a traditional
doctor, saw jade art being created, talked to other tourist about travels
and hiked around the great wall. Of course it was a great day. Tomorrow,
we make the long trek back to the USA, we leave our hotel at 5 am on 8.20.05
Beijing time and since that is 12 hrs ahead of NY time, therefore we will be
departing NYC time at 5pm on 8.19.05 then we arrive in NY at 9:40pm on 8.20.05
then we take a 11:30pm NYC shuttle bus to CT and 2 hours later at 2am EST
we will get to rest our heads again. So that is 33 hours of traveling that
I am not looking forward to doing. It is actually only 6 hours away from
right now that I will have to get up and start this travel adventure and
I still have to pack and try to get some hours of sleep. augh.

I can not believe I left Denver mid Jan. and that I have been living out
of a suit case for 8 months what a long mental and physical journey I have
been on, but enough complaining, I got to visit the world and not have
to work. So I will be in touch with all of you when I am back and rested
for a few days in the USA.

Good bye
Sarah and Mark
Journal Entry Beijing Posted On: 8/19/2005