Busy in Beijing
Just a very quick post since despite being only just gone ten I want to get to bed soon...
Yesterday I did a tour of various places and today similar...
It was a tour billed as having an english speaking tour guide. It seems this did not mean she spoke english all the time since the tour I'd booked had 30 odd people and 29 were chinese. This caused some upset at first (I'm being quite emotional at the moment due to feeling all isolated in a foreign country) but turned out not to be a huge problem. At the Ming tombs the guide put me with another tour with an english group so the guide was explaining everything just in english. My tour guide said she would repeat things in english after the chinese but didn't on the coach. On the other hand this may be because she was just talking about the weather and it may have been because I fell asleep after five minutes of chinese talking...
The Jade factory was amusing. It was a total tourist trap.A five minute tour actually ended in a sales pitch (at least I think that's what it was, it was all in chinese) before we were dumped into a huge sales hall selling nothing but Jade (I assume overpriced but may not have been). Unfortunately we were there for about 45 minutes with nothing to do before lunch but one of the Chinese guys on the tour (andy) started chatting to me which was good.
Oh, there were also kids on the tour who were great and kept practicing their english on me. I got asked many many times over the course of the day "Where are you from" and "How are you today"?:) They were great. They even gave me some food later after the great wall.
Lunch was traditional chinese. At least in appearance. I'm not sure being in a vast hall with about a hundred big round tables more like a conference facility is that traditional. This was ajoined to the jade factory though. I was slightly embarrassed over lunch when it was all put on the table and and the mother of the family at the same table (all on the same tour) insisted I helped myself to the rice first. It was very sweet. :)
At the great wall I went to Badaling with this tour, against others advice, and it was, as I had been warned, packed and touristy. It wasn't bad however. Andy kept me company (I think partly at the request of the tour guide but he didn't mind). We went around with another girl. up the "Drag car" which was kind of like the uphill bit of rollercoasters in that there is just a big chain in the tracks pulling your little vehicle up. We walked the wall which was much harder than I expected. I'm sure people must have said it before but it is so up and down. It was exhausting and there were times the slope actually required a hand rail to safely go up and down (though other places they had steps). we walked a fair way and took lots of photos and I have a fair few of me thanks to andy.
Oh, there were also random bears at the touristy area at the bottom. They were kind of cute but I don't know why they were there and they looked very very hot, the poor things.
The way back down was walking back along the bit of wall and then down via the car things... The way down was slightly different though and a lot more rollercoastery than I expected. The vehicles were individual carriages and for the way down they were chained in batches of 15 with a driver at the front. Well, more a brakesman since there was no steering, just braking. And little enough of that. :) There were signs saying "no racing" but given the way our guy was driving either he was ignoring them (there were two tracks and we well overtook the people on the other track) or he was just a much faster driver than the guy next to us.
The only real downside looking back at yesterday was that there was very poor visibility due to low could (or maybe pollution, who knows) which means the views at the ming tombs weren't as good as they could have been (apparently from the Soul Tower of the one we were at we should have seen most of the others) and likewise the great wall. However, the views from the wall were still great. I just think they would have been spectacular on a clearer day. Of course, with how much hard work it was I don't know if I wanted a clear day and lot of sun...
Today I got up earlier and after a bit more of a wibble decided to get my act together and sort out some plans. After mentioning to a girl yesterday I was going to get a sleeper to xian she said that they were all booked for sleeping and doing it all in a chair sounded like a shit idea. Luckily somebody else suggested a flight company and they do internal flights for under a hundred quid mostly.
I'd also been worrying about my exact schedule in terms of wanting to get more time to take days off and so on and what I was going to be able to do. So this morning I sat down and made lots of plans and feel a lot better for it. It wasted a big chunk of today but my mood has been much better so I think it was worth it.
Then for the rest of the day I had planned Tiananmen square and the Forbidden city. Having got to Tiananmen square and wandered around for a bit I realised I wouldn't have that much time in the forbidden city. So after a bit off faffing and a bad call on routefinding (I went the wrong way looking for taxis) I got myself to the Summer Palace which in essence is a park with some pretty buildings. It was a good call though. A guide touted himself to me and I'm sure overcharged me but at this stage I couldn't be bothered with the faff of tickets and the price he was asking was fine in pounds though well overpriced in RMB I think.
He showed me around the buildingy bits of it and took photos of me and told me interesting stuff (the hill is shaped like a bat and the lake like a peach apparently). I saw a nice temple at the top of the hill, some beautiful views and then he stuck me on a boat to the other side of the lake (well, round the corner of it really). I was lat on the crowded boat but this meant I just sat on the prow just behind the figure head (couldn't stand or I'd block the drivers view) and it was most pleasant. I then wandered around, saw a monk do random stuff (he turned up, looked across the lake with a bowl that he ran a thing around so it made noise and then after a while stopped and went off again), people flying kites and other cool stuff. I decided to just enjoy things so sat down and got out a book and read for half an hour before finishing exploring. It was a great place and a really nice way to spend the day.
Tomorrow I plan to do the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City. And depending on how I feel after that there is a park (Jingshan Park) just north of the Forbiddden City with a hill with views. From what I've seen it should be great for photos of the outside of the City. Then thursday a slow start as I get to Xian and then have a slow day there (its basically my day off) before I start on things like the terracotta warriors and such like. I still need to book a hostel there though, I'm going to do that after I get confirmation of my flight tickets...
P.S. Sorry about spelling and typos. this keyboard isn't great and I've written this straight into LJ rather than via openoffice first where I tend to spellcheck stuff. Hopefully it mostly makes sense, ask if anything seems majorly screwed though.
Yesterday I did a tour of various places and today similar...
It was a tour billed as having an english speaking tour guide. It seems this did not mean she spoke english all the time since the tour I'd booked had 30 odd people and 29 were chinese. This caused some upset at first (I'm being quite emotional at the moment due to feeling all isolated in a foreign country) but turned out not to be a huge problem. At the Ming tombs the guide put me with another tour with an english group so the guide was explaining everything just in english. My tour guide said she would repeat things in english after the chinese but didn't on the coach. On the other hand this may be because she was just talking about the weather and it may have been because I fell asleep after five minutes of chinese talking...
The Jade factory was amusing. It was a total tourist trap.A five minute tour actually ended in a sales pitch (at least I think that's what it was, it was all in chinese) before we were dumped into a huge sales hall selling nothing but Jade (I assume overpriced but may not have been). Unfortunately we were there for about 45 minutes with nothing to do before lunch but one of the Chinese guys on the tour (andy) started chatting to me which was good.
Oh, there were also kids on the tour who were great and kept practicing their english on me. I got asked many many times over the course of the day "Where are you from" and "How are you today"?:) They were great. They even gave me some food later after the great wall.
Lunch was traditional chinese. At least in appearance. I'm not sure being in a vast hall with about a hundred big round tables more like a conference facility is that traditional. This was ajoined to the jade factory though. I was slightly embarrassed over lunch when it was all put on the table and and the mother of the family at the same table (all on the same tour) insisted I helped myself to the rice first. It was very sweet. :)
At the great wall I went to Badaling with this tour, against others advice, and it was, as I had been warned, packed and touristy. It wasn't bad however. Andy kept me company (I think partly at the request of the tour guide but he didn't mind). We went around with another girl. up the "Drag car" which was kind of like the uphill bit of rollercoasters in that there is just a big chain in the tracks pulling your little vehicle up. We walked the wall which was much harder than I expected. I'm sure people must have said it before but it is so up and down. It was exhausting and there were times the slope actually required a hand rail to safely go up and down (though other places they had steps). we walked a fair way and took lots of photos and I have a fair few of me thanks to andy.
Oh, there were also random bears at the touristy area at the bottom. They were kind of cute but I don't know why they were there and they looked very very hot, the poor things.
The way back down was walking back along the bit of wall and then down via the car things... The way down was slightly different though and a lot more rollercoastery than I expected. The vehicles were individual carriages and for the way down they were chained in batches of 15 with a driver at the front. Well, more a brakesman since there was no steering, just braking. And little enough of that. :) There were signs saying "no racing" but given the way our guy was driving either he was ignoring them (there were two tracks and we well overtook the people on the other track) or he was just a much faster driver than the guy next to us.
The only real downside looking back at yesterday was that there was very poor visibility due to low could (or maybe pollution, who knows) which means the views at the ming tombs weren't as good as they could have been (apparently from the Soul Tower of the one we were at we should have seen most of the others) and likewise the great wall. However, the views from the wall were still great. I just think they would have been spectacular on a clearer day. Of course, with how much hard work it was I don't know if I wanted a clear day and lot of sun...
Today I got up earlier and after a bit more of a wibble decided to get my act together and sort out some plans. After mentioning to a girl yesterday I was going to get a sleeper to xian she said that they were all booked for sleeping and doing it all in a chair sounded like a shit idea. Luckily somebody else suggested a flight company and they do internal flights for under a hundred quid mostly.
I'd also been worrying about my exact schedule in terms of wanting to get more time to take days off and so on and what I was going to be able to do. So this morning I sat down and made lots of plans and feel a lot better for it. It wasted a big chunk of today but my mood has been much better so I think it was worth it.
Then for the rest of the day I had planned Tiananmen square and the Forbidden city. Having got to Tiananmen square and wandered around for a bit I realised I wouldn't have that much time in the forbidden city. So after a bit off faffing and a bad call on routefinding (I went the wrong way looking for taxis) I got myself to the Summer Palace which in essence is a park with some pretty buildings. It was a good call though. A guide touted himself to me and I'm sure overcharged me but at this stage I couldn't be bothered with the faff of tickets and the price he was asking was fine in pounds though well overpriced in RMB I think.
He showed me around the buildingy bits of it and took photos of me and told me interesting stuff (the hill is shaped like a bat and the lake like a peach apparently). I saw a nice temple at the top of the hill, some beautiful views and then he stuck me on a boat to the other side of the lake (well, round the corner of it really). I was lat on the crowded boat but this meant I just sat on the prow just behind the figure head (couldn't stand or I'd block the drivers view) and it was most pleasant. I then wandered around, saw a monk do random stuff (he turned up, looked across the lake with a bowl that he ran a thing around so it made noise and then after a while stopped and went off again), people flying kites and other cool stuff. I decided to just enjoy things so sat down and got out a book and read for half an hour before finishing exploring. It was a great place and a really nice way to spend the day.
Tomorrow I plan to do the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City. And depending on how I feel after that there is a park (Jingshan Park) just north of the Forbiddden City with a hill with views. From what I've seen it should be great for photos of the outside of the City. Then thursday a slow start as I get to Xian and then have a slow day there (its basically my day off) before I start on things like the terracotta warriors and such like. I still need to book a hostel there though, I'm going to do that after I get confirmation of my flight tickets...
P.S. Sorry about spelling and typos. this keyboard isn't great and I've written this straight into LJ rather than via openoffice first where I tend to spellcheck stuff. Hopefully it mostly makes sense, ask if anything seems majorly screwed though.