DAY 3-
Well its day three, and quite honestly, it was my favorite day so far. After a full day of walking around the 68,000 mile Beijing, our tour guide Daniel let us sleep in until 5:30. So we had that going for us, which was nice. But it was all in our best interest as we had to get an early start on THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA (Badaling edition). The best way to describe the initial impact of seeing The Great Wall is to quote Richard Nixon about the wall, “It really is great”. The thing that about The Great Wall that you really can’t sense from seeing National Geographic pictures is how difficult it is to walk along. It is very uneven terrain slanting left and right and any given notice, and at some points along the wall, it seems as if it is a vertical climb. But once you get to the higher points of the wall, the view makes you forget all the hard work it was…but then again once you get back to the hotel the sore legs make you remember. What set The Great Wall apart from the rest of the places we visited so far, is how much it still feels like when it was first built. Even though the section we walked had been repaired recently, and you were surrounded by thousands of tourists, it still looked and felt like you were walking around in the Ming Dynasty.
While we were at The Great Wall, I began to notice that several locals were taking pictures of our group. I must look like Michael Phelps or something, because every ten minutes some comes up and tries to take a picture with me or slyly use the camera phone when they think I’m not looking. Tour guide Daniel said that for them, seeing an American was a big deal and so they like to take a picture of us to show their friends and family. He said that it’s like a little child taking a picture with the President, and then hanging the picture up and using it as motivation to study hard. I have no problem with this, because it makes you feel like a rock star as you travel throughout the country.
After The Wall we took a break from our busy schedule for a lovely tea ceremony. At the tea ceremony we not only learned how to make and prepare tea, but we also learned which kind of tea was drank for what purpose. This stop of the tour was not only educational but also delicious.
From the tea ceremony we went to a very exciting part of our tour, a ride in an authentic rickshaw. Our rickshaw ride was through and around the glorious Huntong part of Beijing. This was very exciting as it wasn’t your typical tourist destination. It really felt like we were amongst the locals, right amongst their everyday lives. The most fascinating part was when we stopped and toured an actual person’s house interrupting their everyday life. While this was interesting and beneficial from an educational standpoint t, it was also very weird and voyeuristic learning about a stranger’s culture while sitting in their kitchen.
And finally at the end of our day, we went to another family style restaurant. I didn’t explain what I meant by this in the last post, so I guess I’ll take the time to do that here. In the center of the table is a round lazy Susan like contraption in which the food is placed. One at a time the waitresses bring out a dish and place it on the lazy Susan, then once the food spins it’s way around to in front of you, you serve yourself and put a portion on your plate. Then you spin it, to get to the next dish. Quite honestly I wouldn’t mind eating all my meals like this, because it has all the elements of an American buffet, which I like, without all the walking. So far all of our dinners have been this way, so I have to believe this is a common Chinese practice, either that or they want the tourists to believe it is.
wǎn ān,
Kevin
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