2013 - OCEANIA - BEJING & HOME

Wed 13 Mar 2013
View 2013 OCEANIA - SINGAPORE TO BEIJING on hasbeen's travel map.

Before tacking the Great Wall for the 2nd time, we visit a temple & a shopping visit to a Jade sales outlet.

Heres the temple....very quiet... we were about the only tourists there..

...but there must have been some people there at some time judging by the contributions...

At the Jade place....A polisher....

.....some bangles.

A sales girl puts a plastic bag over your hand to help the band slip over your wrist easily.

I saw these on the way in & went back to take photos. They are silk embroidery. I saw some in other countries earlier & again the other day. Amazing work. Some are on screens where you can see both sides. Each side had the same picture but in different colours. I missed the explanation of how they do that.

.....Still embroidery...

.....& Still embroidery...Amazing...

And this is not embroidery but marble..

I am not going to buy anything here so I sit at a bar inside the shop & try to order a Chinese beer. The chinese girl sitting next to me helps me out. She is the tour leader for another group & I had an enjoyable half hour listening to her complain about her guests. Seems Chinese groups can be just as annoying as American.

ENOUGH WITH THE SHOPPING... LETS GET ON TO THE WALL...

& my first glimpses of my second section of the wall...from the bus...

The entrance gate - note the snow, but a picture perfect blue sky..

Mary & her husband. He's still not well but is gonna make the wall. How could he not having got all the way here. Don't know who the girl getting in the way is....nice shoes..

Standing room only.....& will I make it to the tower at the top? Not on your Nelly. That's hard work.

Mary's husband again. With me taking a pic of the Chinese guy taking a pic of the ladies & us - all holding our arms out, don't know why. Lots of giggling..

More posing...

She took my photo too..again with the V sign..

Her again - gives a good idea of how steep it is.

I went back down about now.

Way too steep for me.

Me - Gasping for breath.. Mary's husband took this one & we both retreated downhill after. He said 'the blind leading the sick'. He knows my glasses are bi-focal & how hard it is to see the ground with them. Hard walking down steps. He suggested I take them off but without them I cannot even see him.
Still - we made the effort & it was a nice day for it.

I head off the wall & go find a bathroom. In passing - Bathrooms throughout have been excellent - if you are not female. Some places only have the squat toilet or 50 squat toilets & one western toilet. No problem for the guys but those squats are difficult if you are not used to them & why don't they supply hand rails to haul yourself up afterwards!

I should get this translated...people were lining up to pose here.

Hey Mom! Guess where I am!

Very few western tourists....

I should have asked where these ladies are from.

Mongolia, maybe.

They were having a great time.

I like to think it had something to do with the cannon & shelling China maybe, or the fact they are inside the wall?

Nice clothes & she was really cracking up.

After all that puffing on the wall, we see this from the car park.

A CABLE CAR!!!!!

a last look at the wall from the bus...

Into Beijing & a quick stop to see the birds nest - from across a major highway. Some guests wanted to go inside but the guide did not, so we did not.

Kites...

Chinese tourists, amazed at the white barbarians going by...

More kites

I had read about Hutongs in Beijing. Original parts of the city or how it would have looked many moons ago. Not many left now. I kept bugging the guide about going there and eventually enough people showed an interest, so he arranged it - for only 25 dollars.