When we arrived at the wall and were unloading out of the van, Rory and I both noticed something strange. Two of the four Scottish women couldn't quite walk. One of them had a cane, and the other one had an ankle wrap on. They had difficulty just getting out of the van, and as we looked up at the side of the mountain we were about to traverse, we all sort of knew these ladies weren't going anywhere. The women started asking Frank about the cable cars, telling him that they had explicitly asked for a tour that involved cable cars so the two women would be able to actually be on the wall. Frank misunderstood what they were saying, so he said that there were no cable cars. What he meant was that we weren't at the spot that had cable cars, but it came across like he was saying that there weren't cable cars at the wall at all. This didn't make the Scots happy at all, so we were all standing around watching them awkwardly gang up on Frank. And they were completely right, even though it wasn't Frank's fault. But they had a point--they had come a really long distance only to be told that they probably wouldn't get to go up on the wall.
I wanted to satisfy all parties involved. I got out my Beijing tourist map and showed Frank and the ladies that there is a picture of cable cars at the wall, and that's why the ladies were so incensed. We talked about it a little more and decided to hop back in the van and go to the spot where there were cable cars, even though we would all have to pay a little more to take the cars. Fine. Whatever. As long as we all got to be on the wall, I didn't care. When we left one parking lot and approached the other, we could see that damn near everyone in China decided they wanted to take the cable cars, too. Buses were lined up for more than 10 km, and passengers were abandoning ship to walk to the entrance. So grandparents and little kids were walking up the long, winding hill (for 10 km) just to get to the wall to hike some more. The Scots weren't happy about this, either, and again, I totally understood.
But I guess at this point I also started thinking--"wow, this is time that we could be spending hiking up the wall...". I also felt bad for the Chinese family on the tour. I'm not really sure why they opted for the "English tour" since none of them spoke English, but they were really confused and annoyed by the whole cable car misunderstanding. And I think that the ladies should have been a little more understanding. They couldn't believe that buses were just stopped on the side of the road, sans passengers. But it's like--a)we're in freaking China--anything goes! And b)it's one of the biggest holidays of the year. What did you freaking expect? So there was more Frank assualt and angry phone calls, and finally I suggested that we just have a rendezvous time, with the physically capable folks going back to the first spot and the crippled couple trying their luck with the cable cars. Frank didn't seem to think this would work, but then I reminded him that adults are able to handle situations like this (and it was his job to keep everyone happy). So finally, after wasting about an hour of our wall climbing time fighting a battle for some chicks I'll never see again, we went back to the first spot. We had an hour and a half to walk up to a certain point, turn around and walk back.
The wall was even more incredible than I thought it would be. I remember when we went to Mt. Taishan--I had prepared myself for the mountain, but not for the people. This time around, I did just the opposite--I thought the wall meant "peoplepeoplepeople"--so when we actually got our first glimpse of it, even though it was packed, it was just amazing. Almost like a surprise. A surprise that you can see from space...
As soon as we could ditch the Scottish ladies, we did; Frank led us up to a certain point (where it started to get steep) and then bailed. It was nice to not have someone holding our hands the entire time. That would have been impossible anyway--it was so packed! Shoulder to shoulder with a steady stream of people coming and going. I guess to some degree that was nice, because it created a pretty good flow. There was no pressure to walk any faster than the person in front of you. At one point, the stairs stopped altogether, and the path became these big, thick logs that had been drilled into the ground. It was steep, but somehow there were still really old people climbing it in trousers and dress shirts, as well as a fair share of parents carrying their little ones. I don't know how they do it. I was worried about dropping my camera, and there they were, piggybacking fragile little kids.
After our allotted hour and a half, we met Frank to go to the next part of the tour. We got back in the van, and there were the two (marginally)crippled ladies. They never got to get on the wall. I felt really bad for them; it seems like such a tease to take people to the base of the freaking Great Wall, only to tell them, "Take a good look, cause that's all you're getting to see..." They didn't seem as frustrated by it anymore, so we took off to the next locale without too many complaints.
Initially we thought we were just going to the wall, the Ming tombs and lunch. But first we were stopping at a jade factory. Okay, it sounded cool enough. Then we walked in. There were more foreigners at this particular place than there are in all of Weihai; each of them getting the same spiel from some Chinese person who spoke a moderate amount of English. We walked past women slaving away over these little jade pieces, foreigners snapping pictures through the glass. I felt weird being there with all these other folks who probably didn't know much Chinese. I'm not saying I know a whole lot of Chinese, but I know enough to realize when I've been duped into participating in a tour designed for (rich) foreign suckers.
This realization became even more obvious when we entered the gift shop part of the factory. There were rows and rows of elaborate jade and jadeite pieces that went for more than twice as much as they should have. At this point I was thinking "boy, I wish I was still walking on the wall, without Frank and the Scottish ladies..." I think that Frank was even nervous about us saying something to the Scottish ladies about the prices of things, like we were going to ruin their tour. We didn't say much--we didn't want to seem like know-it-alls, but you could tell a little later that Frank empathized with us. Once all the foreigners were "released" into the gift shop, Rory and I snuck away to the rendezvous point and drank some beer.
Our next stop was lunch. As we pulled up to the restaurant, we saw about 100 other vans and tour buses in the parking lot. "Here we go again," we thought. We walked in and sat down at our respective tables; this was funny, because Frank opted to sit at a separate table with the Chinese family, rather than integrating with us foreigners. The lunch was standard "Western version of Chinese food" Chinese fare. We had hot and sour soup and a lot of random fried things. It was okay, but it wasn't an accurate example of a Chinese meal. I don't know what I was expecting at this point, but still... The whole restaurant was full of foreigners, many of them the same ones we had seen at the last jade place. Once we were all finished eating, we were released into another gift shop area, where the prices for the same factory jade pieces were considerably cheaper. Once the Scottish chicks caught onto this, they were a little annoyed, but happy that they hadn't purchased anything at the previous locale.
I saw a cheaply made fish kite on the wall, and just for curiousity's sake, I wanted to see how much it cost. While we were in Weifang--China's kite capital (near Changyi, where we visited Mayor Ma)--Rory and I visited a kite shop and bought three really impressive and well-crafted kites for 150 rmb. Of course, it probably helped that we were with a freaking mayor... The cheap kite at the restaurant gift shop was marked 280 rmb. I couldn't believe it! There were also signs all over the store that read: "This is a government friendship store. All prices are reasonable. No bargaining." I understand that the folks want to make a buck, I just wished I was on a different tour.
Next stop was the Ming Tombs, which were a lot less impressive than we thought they were going to be. Of course, at this point we realized how much of our day was being wasted by folks trying to get our money, and we really wanted to just ditch the tour. Couldn't do that, though, so we suffered through four more hours of the same crap. We stopped at a tea shop (full of foreigners and overpriced tea) and a silk factory (full of foreigners and overpriced silk goods), before heading back to our hotel. We did get to drive near the Olympic stadium and village that are still being erected, and we all wondered out loud to Frank if Beijing was actually going to be ready for the Olympics next year. He seemed to think it would be no problem, but the lack of progress, coupled with English skills that most Beijingers seemed to lack, indicated otherwise. We shall see.
Once we were dropped off at our hotel, it was close to 6:00, and it was hard to believe we had been to the Great Wall earlier in the day. But that's what pictures and videos are for. We certainly learned a lesson, too: if you think that there's any way you can do something on your own, you probably can. We could have figured out how to get on a public bus to head out to the wall and spent as much time there as we wanted. Next time! But we definitely weren't signing up for the Tiananmen tour we'd been eyeing at our hotel.
Ate McDonald's again for dinner (part of our budget included lots of cheap McDonald's meals; it's tactical, really...) before we decided to clean up and head back to Houhai and 31. The waitstaff, boss and band were happy to see us again, and we spent another relaxing night there, listening to music and sipping whiskey.
On our way back to find a taxi, we passed by a bar that was playing "In the name of Love" by U2 really loudly. The sign outside also boasted a "fucking good mojito", so we thought we owed it to ourselves to check it out. We sucked down a proper mojito and headed back to the hotel.
Bright and early the next day (after McDonald's breakfast and coffee), we hopped in a taxi and said "Tiananmen". Piece of cake. We were dropped off amongst a swarm of people. We saw the famous Mao portrait, and we started walking with everyone else to the entrance.
Though there were so many freaking people visiting the palace museum, it wasn't nearly as crowded as the wall, simply because it was so spread out. The size of this place was so impressive. We sort of figured out that in China, people don't screw around when they want to make something big or elaborate--they do it right!
While people were waiting in a long line to get entrance tickets, there were scalpers walking up and down and in and out of the people, selling day-old tickets, telling people they didn't need to wait in line. We didn't think anyone would fall for it, but after we had purchased our tickets and were walking through the palace entrance, we watched as the four college-aged Chinese guys in front of us were detained for having phony tickets. If I can avoid being detained in China, great.
The architecture was probably the most fascinating part of the palace for me. That and the sheer size of it. We were glad that we had already been to Qufu to visit Confucious' temple, because compared to Tiananmen, it was like a Texaco versus a Super Wal-Mart. There were so many children, too. It seemed like they were all climbing on statues, next to very explicit signs that read "No climbing" in Chinese and English. But I guess if it makes a good photo opportunity, go for it... Before we left, we tried to climb up in the gate, to take a picture of the entire palace, but the security was too tight for my liking; they wanted us to check our bags and purchases, they wanted to pat us down, etc. There was no way I was checking our stuff at a public place in China, so I told Rory to just go up without me--I'd hold onto all the stuff and he could just take a camera. But he was stopped. No pictures allowed. Fair enough.
After a quick pit stop at the hotel to drop off all our goodies, we headed over to an area of town called "Soho" in an effort to eat at a German restaurant we had read about on our map. The prospect of eating bratwurst and sauerkraut was really exciting. When we got to this Soho area, however, it was really difficult to navigate our way around. A lot of the buildings were empty, and once we actually found the restaurant, the atmosphere wasn't distinctly German or cozy. Plus, it was really expensive. We hopped back into another cab and tried to go back to the pizza place. On our way, though, we passed a Texas BBQ place and a Mexican restaurant. We opted for the Mexican Wave restaurant. We had frozen margaritas and chimichangas and nachos, and it was incredible! You don't realize what you're missing until you're teased by one Mexican meal. It was really good. While we were there, it started to rain, and we were very thankful that we had already visited the two big spots we wanted to see.
It was a pretty late lunch, so we headed back to take a catnap and to clean up before wandering around to find dinner. We settled on a hotpot place (after realizing we were on a street full of hotpot restaurants). The hotpot was subpar. They told us they had carrots, and then they didn't. Maybe this doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's a real selling point for me with the hotpot restaurants. It determines which places we go to. Anyway. My carrot issue wasn't nearly as bad as Rory's eye issue. Somehow, his super spicy side of the pot bubbled over, and some broth jumped up underneath his glasses and into his eye. Not good. So he's sitting at the table, crying one eye out, asking for cold water, and the waiter just didn't seem to get it at all. He brought back a full glass of boiling hot water. We got the hell out of that place and headed back to 31.
I think that the rain and general change in the weather took its toll on me, and by the time we got to 31, I had a pretty rockin' case of sneezing and sniffling. So that was fun. There was also a group of maybe 7 American university students hanging out, wasted. It was somebody's birthday and someone else was upset about making out with another one (we got to hear a lot of what they were drunkenly, loudly saying); one girl was puking in the bathroom while another girl was puking over the railing across the street, into a lake. The leader of the pack decided to strike up a slurred conversation with us. He was funny. We were friendly with him, but just thinking to ourselves--"I think you need to be at a different bar." 31 is a nice, relaxing place, and it just seemed weird that these incredibly wasted folks were there.
After the kids left, one of the band members came over to talk to us. His English was great! He had taken special English classes and had a degree in horticulture. He was really friendly and soft-spoken. The other member of the band reminded me of a grown-up version of my favorite student in Korea. I couldn't stop staring at him; it was uncanny. Mufel--the one who spoke English--told us to come back the next night, when the whole band was there. We had already been to this place our three nights in town, so we told him we'd definitely see him the next night.
1 comment:
give me blogs or give me death!
Post a Comment