We finally got in to the hotel around 1-1.30 am and crawled into bed after the long day. 2 am and the phone goes. It was Maureen saying they had just arrived and mum had had an accident. She had tripped on the first step of the hotel and landed straight on her face on the tiles. I quickly got dressed and by the time I got down there the tour operator had organised a taxi to take us to the hospital. It was pouring with rain as David -the tour guide, me, mum and a hotel employee drove down one of the ring roads (there are 6 ring roads and a 7th due to be built giving a circumference of almost 1,000 kms to the city) to find a hospital. We eventually got there only to be told there were no doctors there to treat her. If she had hurt her arm or leg or anything else it would be fine but as she has cut her lip which was bleeding very badly we had to go to the university hospital where they could treat her. So off in another taxi for another 30 mins to the next hospital which was fortunately very good and they took her straight away. 16 or so stitches later we made it back to the hotel at 4am to finally get a couple of hours sleep before another big day.
The hotel were very good and paid for everything although they did try and get some money out of her before she left but they obviously had never dealt with my mother before!
The next day we organised a wheelchair as there was going to be a lot of walking and it was still pouring with rain. We first went to Tienanmen Square which happened to be just two days after their big 70 year celebrations of beating Japan which had the square closed for over a week and it had only opened the day before so we were lucky. When I saw the square, all I could really think about was the tanks and the soldiers killing the students but obviously that is never mentioned.
From there it was a bit of a hike to the Forbidden City. I was the first to push the chair then Jon pushed it around the square but Malcolm took over for the rest of the time and did a marvellous job. Jon was dressed in his bright yellow raincoat which was great as no one lost sight of him then and we all decided he had to wear it for the rest of the trip. It really started to pour down in all seriousness by now so we were all a little wet and it's all outside.
The Forbidden City was huge and seemed to go on and on. I think it was built during the Ming dynasty and took 16 years to build, can believe it after walking through it. It also housed, beside the emperor and empress, over 3,000 concubines. A very busy emperor indeed. We walked into the first square then climbed up lots of stairs, not easy with a wheelchair, to a large building which was mostly just a roof and big veranda then had to climb down the stairs, cross a huge square then repeat the process a couple of times. We eventually walked through a garden and came out the other side of the city through a gate in the high walls. To think the last Emperor never came out of there & lived his whole life behind that wall would kinda depress me although it was a large area to live in.
After lunch we went to the Temple of Heaven which is where the emperors would come to offer sacrifices for a good harvest. It is one of the best examples of Ming dynasty architecture according to our guide and was pretty impressive.
That night we went to another show called The Golden Mask Dynasty. This was choreographed by the same guy who oversaw the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and I would have to say it was pretty amazing. The stage was built over water and the floor would slide back revelling the water for boats to go across, walls would slide over the stage and parts of the stage would rise up. At one point it became a huge rock wall and water started pouring over it like a big waterfall, depicting a flood. This water came straight at us and as we were in the front row I thought we would drown. Big grates at our feet managed to catch the water and drain most of it but the floor was still covered in water by the end of the show and had to be swept away. The dancing was also amazing with their bodies contorting into impossible positions.
Sunday morning was my next highlight of the trip, we were off to see The Great Wall at Juyong Guan Pass. Before we got there they took us to a jade factory where they showed us how they carved it, how to distinguish between good jade and cheap jade then showed us how to open our wallets and spend freely in their show room as we will never come across such bargains again. After the wall visit we went to a cloisonné factory where particularly the same thing happened.
The making of the Cloisonné ware |
Couple of large jugs! |
But the wall was another matter. We were in a mountainous area which was very scenic and there was the famous wall disappearing over the rugged slopes just like in the postcards. We all climbed the first lot of stairs and had our group photos showing us on the wall but there were many more stairs to come and all of varying heights. Some were only one block high, some were two and quite a few were three blocks high which made for a very large step. I kinda thought that you walked up some stairs then walked along the top of the wall, like a castle wall but no, at least not in this part. There was no top, just a lot of stairs climbing up the Mountain. Every now and then there was a turret were you could take a break. Mum only made it up the first lot of stairs, everyone else did the second lot, I went up the third lot which nearly killed me and only Malcolm made it up to as far as you could go in the time-frame allowed which was a big effort. The view where I got to was amazing and I must admit I was in awe at the very fact that here I was standing on the Great Wall of China and gazing over the scenery. It was harder to climb down as it is so steep and the steps are so deep but I made it down in time for an ice cream with the others while we waited for Malcolm. I can't imagine having to walk the entire 6700 kms or so let alone building it.
After the Cloisonné factory we went back into town to the Summer Palace, the largest preserved ancient garden garden in China and a former summer resort for the emperors. It has a large lake with gardens and buildings around the foreshore with dragon boats sailing across the lake. It was a lovely time of the evening as the sun was low in the sky giving a lovely light and it was so warm and balmy.
Monday morning was not such an early start, think we left around 9 am to go to the Chinese herbal institute, owned and run by the government for the government employees but tourist were allowed to visit as they had the opportunity to fleece them of lots of money. It started off nice enough with a lecture on Chinese medicine and how they have a holistic approach to healing but they train for 7 years in Chinese medicine then another 3 in western style then some more in something else so they have around 11 years of training. He said what sort of natural herbs and veges can help control certain conditions such as celery is good for high blood pressure and pumpkin is good for diabetes. Then all these tubs of hot water came out and we all soaked our feet in this special herbal mixture to help detoxify our bodies then everyone got at least a half hour foot massage. Everyone that is except me & Roger as there didn't seem to be enough students. When it came to our turn we barely got 10 minutes as everyone else had finished and had left. They said that it was optional to tip, if you felt they had done a good job but when I refused to tip because I didn't get even half of what everyone else got she was very snappy and was insisting on a tip. In the end she stalked off. So much for optional tipping. During this time a Dr came around and looked at people's hands for a few minutes then 'diagnosed' their condition then prescribed the Chinese medicine that would fix it. It wasn't cheap, for a months supply it started off at around $180 minimum. People who sat by Jon spent at least $2000 but we heard of another couple who spent over $6,000! Talk about a con job. Didn't even get a good massage out of it.
After that we were off to the zoo to see the panda bears. It is a large zoo but we didn't get time to see the other parts,just the bear enclosures. As it turns out these were quite big. The first building we went into had three enclosures with just one bear in two of them, doing nothing except lying around. One bear walked a bit then lay in his bamboo bed. The next building had one bear in this huge enclosure, he was playing with his ball and having a great time. Just outside of this building was an outdoor enclosure with two cute younger bears and yet another large enclosure had another bear hoeing into his dinner of bamboo leaves rather enthusiastically. It was a great exhibit and they did look rather cute.
The last item for the day was a Hutong tour which are the old alleyways of Beijing, one of the few areas they hadn't torn down for the Olympics. We chose not to do this tour so were dropped off in town on Wangfujing which is a very upmarket shopping area. It had all the name shops like Prada and several big shopping malls. We had all split up by now, Roger & Maureen, mum & I thought we would go to the silk markets which were only 10 mins away but we could not find a taxi to take us there, for some reason they just refused so we got an ice cream from Dairy Queen then walked down where all the street vendors had set up their food stores along the street. They were selling all sorts of things on a stick like scorpions, silk worms, frogs, snakes, millipedes, tarantulas, sea horses, star fish and anything else that crawls and can be stuck on a stick. I did try some food but only safe stuff such as little pancakes, an octopus on a stick and deep fried bananas.
This itinerary doesn't sound much for a day but the traffic is so horrific that it takes hours to go just a few kilometres so we ran out of time to do anything else.
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