Our driver picks us up in 2.5 hours, so we're busy getting ready to go, packing up and cleaning up. There were a few things we never blogged about, such as Tiananmen Square/Forbidden City and our excursion to the Birds Nest/Water Cube/Olympic Park yesterday. I honestly wasn't as impressed as I wanted to be with Tiananmen Square. It was extremely touristy, and you got approached constantly from people who wanted to be your tour guide for a large amount of money or people offering you tours to the Great Wall, etc. Then to even see the big picture of Mao at the front you had to go through this really long line of people, through a mock village, and up to the front. We didn't stay long and we didn't even really go in.
The Olympic Park on the other hand, was awesome! It was so surreal to actually see it in person and be so close you could touch it. We were going to go in, but after seeing the line to get tickets to just get into the Water Cube, we decided against it. It was almost 90 degrees here yesterday (the hottest day the whole trip) and the line was about an hour long. It was kind of funny because Jacob went into the bathroom and I was waiting. This guy came up and pointed to me and to his camera, so I thought he wanted me to take his picture. No problem. So he led me around the little fence so we were in direct shot of the birds nest, and then he started looking around. Jacob came out and saw us, so immediately came over. The guy, seeing that we were together, pulled Jacob over. He wanted his picture taken with Americans! lol. So I took his picture with Jacob, and then he wanted Jacob to take one of me and him. So there we were, getting our pictures taken with this random guy, throwing up the peace sign in front of the birds nest. I should have taken our own pictures with the guy, but I didn't think of it.
Some things that we have learned from this trip were: 1. Buy better luggage. Ours suck and they were on the cheaper end. We need some heavy duty luggage.
2. Lonely Planet guidebooks are the best. I bought Fodor's to begin with, but Lonely Planet is much better.
3. Always bring snacks from home and supplement with snacks from wherever you are going. We brought organic applesauce, graham crackers, clif bars,etc. Those were great for snacks and breakfasts, and then we found a grocery store around here and got drinks and more snacks as we ran out. it's nice not having to go out for every meal.
4. Always get a nice hotel. it's great to have currency exchange and language help when you need it. And if you need tickets to a show and whatnot, they can get them in one phone call.
5. Laundry. We discovered bar laundry soap here and it was great. We did laundry as we went, doing a few pieces every day and hanging them by the window. We are going home with very few pieces of dirty laundry.
6. Pack lighter carry-on. We packed books and our laptops and stuff, but never touched it besides in the airports. It's packed away and hard to get to without disturbing a lot of people, and the planes have tons of movies, music and tv shows to watch, so there wasn't much of a point. Always take your laptop and breakables though.
7. Remember water bottles. We've needed these a couple times.
And that is all for now...we had a blast but are looking forward to coming home. We miss our dogs, and we have lots of cool souvenirs to hand out. I miss my kiddos at the school and of course we miss our buddy Jordan! We will see you all soon!
On Friday we set out for the Great Wall. I am so so so glad we went then. It was so much cooler that day then it has been the past two days. It was kind of raining in the morning but I was okay with that. I'm not okay with the heat.
We actually paid to have a tour with this trip, it included target shooting with the Chinese military (more on that one and the royal American raping we got with the cost later). We first stopped at the jade factory, which was really cool and I'm glad we went. They showed us how they design, carve and polish the jade and then how to tell if the jade is real or not. They also explained the different types of jade that the bronze, silver and gold Olympic medals were made out of.
Carving a Happiness Ball. A Happiness Ball represents many generations of families coming together.
Carving cabbage. Cabbage brings good luck, but be sure that the root points outside to bring good luck inside.
This is made from one block of jade.
After the factory we headed to the Great Wall. It was beautiful! The mountains around the wall were awesome, it was totally different than any part of Beijing that we had been in. There were some small villages around the wall as well.
This is the steep part of the wall, and for some reason it's also the most touristy. We opted for the less crowded, less steep side.
Our stairs were still pretty steep. This is what we had to climb. It was really weird, you would have three or four short steps and then like five steps that were 4 bricks tall. Do you know how hard that is to climb???
Oh - and a little piece of Kristyn will be forever remain at the Great Wall. It was really windy and something got into my right contact. I stopped because I couldn't see anything and decided to take it out. Jacob held my case and I got it in there and then the lid fell. Jacob bent down to get it and hit the case, sending my contact flying. We looked for a while, all over the place, but it was gone. I emailed my eye doctor and told them how I lost my contact at the Great Wall and they placed an order for me so that I will have it sooner than if I ordered it when I got home. An interesting story for the grandkids don't you think?
After the Wall we went Target shooting. The tour guide assured us that the ammunition was cheap. When we went in there she was asking what the prices were for the different guns (kinda weird since she goes there often, she should have a general idea right?) The look on her face seemed surprised when she got the answers. They quoted us a price of 8RMB for an AK47 with a minimum of 10 bullets per person. So total it was over $30.00 for the both of us to shoot an AK47 10 times. That is a lot of money in China. Cheap my ass. Anyway, I didn't really enjoy it as much as I thought I would, since I was without contact in my shooting eye anyway and couldn't really see the target. And it hurt really bad to shoot it. Holy cow. But it was an experience that I definitely don't regret.
Oh - and Ashleigh, to answer your question - the pearls were more than likely not real. If they were they were probably really low quality. But surprisingly, the pearl market had very few pearls and more knock-off designer items. lol.
So I have a quick update this afternoon. We just got back from the Temple of Heaven and the Pearl Shop; it was a pretty good afternoon. I'm a little upset that we went shopping at the Silk Market a few days ago because I am beginning to think I spent too much there. At the Pearl Shop today I was able to piss off some Chinese workers.
To start things off we bought some souvenirs. I wanted to do better than a few days ago so here we go. They started the price for this item at 280 and that was just too much. After about 10 minutes of talking I was able to talk then down to 20 each (I bought 2). That was less than 10% of the starting price. I though I did pretty good and it was fun. We don't really get this experience in the States unless you buy a car, even then you can't go that low. I had to walk away a few times but they kept calling be back. But that wasn't our best deal, the big score was the purse we bought Kristyn.
We had to visit 3 different places before one would seriously play with us. The starting price was around 1200 but we were able to get that down pretty quickly. The first stop we tried to target 60 but the vendor would only go down to 100. We decided that was too high and started walking somewhere else. We found a good low price that we could get if we wanted to but we wanted it a little lower than that. Like I said we wanted 60 but the second place stopped at 100 too. This vendor would not go lower than 100 and told us that was the best price and no one would beat it. Keep this in mind because we talked to them again later. I will call them Vendor 2 because they were. The last shop we stopped at for the purse saw us talking to the last and she jumped down to 100 pretty quickly. Again I tried for 60 but I knew I wouldn't get much lower than 100 if at all. She did her sales pitch thing and said her purse was a higher quality than the last so I went up to 80. She said it was impossable so we walked away. As we were walking away she called us back by saying 80, this ended up being a joke. We came back but she said 180... like we heard it wrong. We started walking away again and she said 85. What is 5? she asked. Not much, about 80 cents but I wasn't going to budge from 80. This is the part where she got pissed and so did all the verdors around her. It is well known that they will not sell an item to you unless they make money but they like to rip Americans off. I don't blame them and I don't really think they are ripping Americans off. I would say its just as much the Americans fault if not more for not watching the locals or knowing the shopping areas before they go there. So back to the story, we walked away again when she said 85. I think the vendor next to her was cussing us out but we don't know that for sure. The whole language thing. she called us back at 80 and this time she meant it. We paid with a 100y bill and I thought that was kind of funny. Another reason I think we pissed her off is because they normally switch off of the 'I'm upset because you are not paying enough' as soon as you pay. She didn't and neither did the other vendors arounder her. Damn Americans... :) Oh yeah, remember Vendor 2? We had to walk passed them to get to the stairs. They asked if we wanted to buy the purse. We let them know we had already purchased it for 80. The look on their faces were priceless. I wish we had our camera ready. I really think we got it for cost if not a little below. It was nice. Maybe we will go back if we have the money.
Oh, to start the day off we saw this really cool MP3 player that was inside sun glasses. They started off at 380. I thought I was doing good when I got them to 100 but it only took about 2 minutes. I decided it was too fast and cancelled the purchase. I think the MP3 player was cool but not for $20 US. I think that is what helped me get the other deals after that, I was able to walk away if the deal was done too quickly.
After the Zoo, we headed out to Lama Temple and Confucius Temple. The Lama Temple is a Tibetan Buddhist Temple and Confucius Temple is Confucianism (kind of obvious). Lama Temple was really touristy, which was surprising to me, but Confucius Temple was a little quieter. And we experienced our first battle with discrimination, which was weird. We took a taxi to Lama Temple and then walked down the street to Confucius Temple. On the way back we could not get a taxi for anything. Everyone would just go right by us. One guy stopped, and when we showed him where we needed to go he shouted a "No!" And drove off. Not sure what that was about...but it was pretty annoying. Also, I realize it's their culture, but it is SOOO annoying when people have to take a million pictures of themselves doing things. At the zoo I had to wait for this girl to get out of the way because she kept having her boyfriend take picture after picture of her pretending to "pet" the panda through the glass. Literally like 10 pictures. At Confucius Temple this girl had her boyfriend take a picture of her posing with every exhibit in the museum. Oh, a knife that Confucius once used to carve? Take a picture of me leaning against the case! Even when the poor guy just tried to take a picture of the temple itself, she would jump in - flashing the ever popular peace sign.
Anyway, here's some cool pictures:
Entrance to Lama Temple
Remember that!
They would light their incense and take it in to the temple with them. There were a set amount that they needed to take into each temple. I didn't take pictures of the inside of the temples because it seems disrespectful to me...people worshipping and me being all touristy. But just know that they were all beautiful inside.
Confucius Temple!
Tablets with ancient writings on them. They are almost faded, but you can still make them out.
Some writing
Another funny story - we went down the street with the idea of going to this little tea shop. We walked into this store - The Wu Mart, and it was a huge 4 level supermarket. So we were looking around and we got a 6 pack of laundry soap bars, a Wok, a big bottle of Coke, a bottle of Juice and a little thing of Pepsi. Anyway, we had left the backpack behind because we didn't plan on buying much. So Jacob had to walk down this really long, busy street carrying a Wok and a 6 pack of laundry soap. You have to pay for the bags at this store, so we just opted to carry them. But he was already out of place because of the whole American thing and to see him carrying these random items down the street was hilarious. On another note, all of those items together only cost 39RMB, which is about $7.00.
So the other day we spent the morning at the Beijing Zoo. It wasn't what I expected actually. Well, you can't really expect too much at a zoo, but it was so sad to see them all caged up and miserable. It's really a crappy life for them. It's funny, because when I was younger my parents would never let us go to Sea World because they said they were trapped and not in their natural environment, and I never understood that. Now I totally do. I don't think I'll be going back to a zoo any time soon. But we did see the pandas and I did get to pet a zebra, so that was cool.
Panda!
Jacob really likes his meats on a stick.
I consider myself an honorary Asian now because I have Converse shoes.
The sign says No Feeding...
But you have to do as the locals do right?
Funny note - a lot of people here do what I think is called "Elimination Communication" where the babies don't wear diapers, they wear split pants and the parents are able to tell by their behaviors and facial expressions and such when they need to go to the bathroom. I think it's pretty common in Asia. Anyway, we were walking past the entrance of the zoo and there was a family sitting on a ledge and all of a sudden this baby shoots a line of pee and Jacob had to JUMP out of the way. It was so funny. Apparently they didn't realize that he had to go. The other day there was a baby pooping at Tiananmen Square too, much different from home...