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.