beijing: day 2

Woke up at 6:20
Even harder to wake up then yesterday
Went down for brekkie
Getting harder and harder to eat the food offered, who knew asians could make bad fried rice and noodles;
Also, sat at wrong table with Korean tourists (instead of our ABC group) cos we were late

First stop was long di jade store;
we got to watch workers people make intricate jade ornaments and got taught how to tell the real stuff from the fake
Then it was waiting time while people shopped around.
lots and lots of waiting while our tour group shopped...

After that we went to the ming dynasty tombs, which was located underground. We had to walk down many many flights of stairs to get to what was mostly replicas of the original tombs. boo.

Right outside the tomb grounds, were a whole heap of street vendors and the Boy's mother got jipped by one of them. Apparently, she bought a 20RMB hat and was going to pay with 100RMB. But then the street vendor was like, hey you have a 20 in your wallet, why don't you give me that? (while she was holding the aunty's 100RMB)
Obviously, there was no 20 in her wallet, and while she was being distracted, the vendor took the time to swap the 100RMB for 100 in taiwanese money (which looks deceptively similar).
The aunty ended up going back and confronting the street vendor, who was all like Oh! I didn't realise~
But wow...

After that, it was back the way we came for lunch, lol, at the Jade restaurant
(pretty much a standard 3 meals everyday.
so brekkie would be at the hotel. then lunch and dinner were pretty much 8 dishes, a soup, a beer and a softdrink. )

Then it was the great wall (長城)
Shit. The Great Wall.
I'm going to wiki some facts now just to put it into perspective. The wall is broken into segments, with parts that are not publicly accessible. So it's not possible to walk the entire length.
But why would you want to?
It's apparently 8,851.8 km long. I wouldn't want to walk that even if it were flat road. And it's not.
By heavens, it is NOT flat.

We got dropped off at one of the many different passes that line the great wall - 居庸關 - JuYongGuan Pass, which was conveniently sectioned into a young vs. old side.
By old side, they mean it's for old people to walk as it's relatively flatter. Any by the young, they mean, only walk this if you're physically able to climbing stairs that reach your knees, do not get vertigo and can breathe in cold high-altitude atmosphere.

Of course we took the YOUNG side. -______________-
Only cos by this time, isaac and the Boys had become fast friends so they wanted to race each other. Me and mum and their mum got dragged along into the mess.

Needless to say, pretty much 15 minutes into the walk, I wanted to die. Cold (~1 degree), air compression, steep stairs. Eck. My knees were shaking. And I actually got vertigo, possibly because any attraction in china is pretty much - go at your own risk - because it's not guaranteed safe.
I felt like i could fall off the stairs at any point and fall to my death -.-
They were crooked, and some parts of the stairs were gone.
Big sigh.

But was it worth it?
HELL YEAH! Felt so accomplished. We were given, i think, 1.5 hours to go at our own speeds.
I think I got up to the 14th tower. The boys made it up to the 13th (working backwards)
Hectic!!!!

And of course, climbing down the stairs was even worse. Jelly legs. Took over three days to full recover from the strain -.- So unfit!

Biggest lols came at the end, when we were safely back on the ground.
After 1.5 hours of climbing treacherous sandstone and maintaining graceful balance, Isaac full stacked it coming out of toilet, which had a wooden banister at the bottom of the entrance. Major lols.
Also, one of the street vendors asked if mum was my mum. And mum being mum said she was my stepmother again. Rolls eyes.

Then it was off to the tea selling place - doctor tea.
The room was too small for the 44 of us, so about 10 of us got sectioned off into a smaller room. Mostly us, the Boys and their mum, and Katherine (who sat with us at the back of the bus and worked for starbucks IT in seattle, is in her 50s and has never married or had children)
Knew we were getting ripped but dang, felt so bad for the girls selling us the $700 pu er tea.
We kept drinking samples of the good stuff. lol. The Boys were hilarious, asking for refills as the adults kept haggling.
Apparently, in yunan (where the tea girls were from), they marry the men off to the ladies and get given pu er as dowry. Major lols for aunty trying to sell the Boys off to the tea girls (who were 19) in exchange for the tea.
Most hectic haggling I've ever seen. I think the girl wanted to cry.

After that was dinner. We got individual hotpots. Best thing was the spinach noodles. Everything else was a bit weird.
Also, i later found out that they reused everyone's old soup as the refill soup. Eck!!!!!!

Last table to leave cos the Boys wouldn't stop eating.
Tsingtao beer - "it's good"

Now back in room.
Legs dead.