Great Wall, Ming Tombs, Legend of Kung Fu

Beijing Day 2
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7 am and I'm in the lobby waiting for... I have no idea who, but I'm sure they'll know me when they see me.  I'm waiting for all of 3 minutes when a man comes in, walks up to me and says my room number.  I get up and we leave.  It occasionally occurs to me that some might find it strange to be so comfortable with complete strangers, but the thought fades just as quickly.

We walk (pretty far) to the van which has another man (the driver) and a woman (the english-speaking tour guide).  Turns out I was the only one going on the day long tour (SWEET!)  As it was a tour, there were some prerequisite stops.  The first was the Dragon Land Superior Jade Gallery.  Wow.  I learned a lot about jade and of the existence of Jadite (sounds like an RPG in the making).  I had no idea how hard jade was (harder than steel according to the guide).  The process of sculpting it was incredible as well.  Each craftsmans fingers centimeters away from a spinning saw blade.  I saw one worker slip and I fully expected to see a finger get split open or go flying.  Luckily there was no blood shed and kept at it.  The work on the floor was really impressive.  I had to take lots of pics.

Beijing Day 2
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Next stop, the Great Wall.  Linlin my tour guide dropped me off at the gate and said I had 2 hours.  Ok.  Works for me.  They also gave me a long umbrella (which came in handy as a cane later).  For some reason when I imagined the Great Wall the large number of steps necessary to get to the top were missing.  The fact that I couldn't see that far above didn't help much.  Linlin had told me earlier that this set of stairs was about 880 meters up.  I chose to mentally block that as I headed up.  I was going to get tot he top.  Upon feelin my mortality 15 minutes in, I "realized" I'd been living my life Very wrong.  And that I hated stairs.  The hotel in Old Beijing has no elevator and I'm on the 5th floor.  I'm REALLY going to hate those stairs later tonight, but for now I'll focus my pain and hate on these. Climb, climb, climb.  Pant, pant, pant.  Damn computers and the sedentary lifestyle they enable!  Yes, I'm this bitchy in my head, but I've got the other little voice that's a hard ass telling me I will make it up these stairs and go to the gym when I get back home.   Climb, climb, climb. Pant, pant, pant.  Bitch, bitch, bitch.  This continues for another 20 minutes until I reach with great labor what I Thought was the top.  Nope.  At that point I was completely pwned by the Great Wall.  Time to go back down.  So I made it down with almost an hour to spare.  For Shame.  So I checked out out some of the other structures and made it back to the van with some time to spare.

Beijing Day 2
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Next stop, Cloisonne and lunch.  I told Linlin I like really spicy Sechuan so she had them make me somthing spicy.  At this point I don't know if I was pictured out or was just in a hurry to eat (first meal since arriving) but I left my camera in the van. The goods sold here were made of copper.  First hammered into shape, after which small pieces of copper were applied to form patterns.  enamel powder is them filled in and the work is fired inthe kiln.  This process is repeated 6-7 times before being polished, giving the finished piece the look of porceling.  Seeing what they started with and the end product was Really amazing.  There was one plate that I really like, but not enough to spend 4000+ yuan.  I went back to the van after lunch to get my camera so I could take a picture though ^_^

Beijing Day 2
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Next stop, Ming Tombs.  This seemed to be as much a museum as a tomb.  Lots of pictures of jewelry and clothing of the time. Next stop Tea House.  Wait, Tea House?  Now, somthing I didn't fully take into consideration is how my guides were getting paid (A conversation with Aron later gave the light bulb that final twist).  You see I hadn't bought anything all day and being the only one on the tour made the day, in all likelyhood, less than profitable.  Now, factor into this a conversation I'd had with Aron the previous day about Tea ceremonies that people would invite me to that would get very pricy ver quickly.  And last but not least my slip on drinking water while in Egypt as a teenager and mayhem theat insued meant I REALLY wasn't interested in trying tea, which even I think is really sad.  At this point Linlin say she's having tea so I can look around :p  The employees of the tea house were horrified when I said I didn't want any tea.  I'll have to figure out some way to do this on some future trip unless I was just being overly cautious this time. On the way back to my hotel we stopped to get food for my guides (this had turned out to be an early day for them because it was only me).  Linlin suggested I see a show.  Despite how tired I was, I was determined to make a full day of it.  I decide on the Legend of Kung Fu over the Opera and Acrobats.  She gave me options (price ranges) for seats and the one she picked couldn't have been more perfect.  As I got out of the van which had parked where it had this morning it started to rain.  within about 10 steps it was pouring.  Wow.  That's timing.  So I walk back tot he hotel.  About halfway there I decide to buy a little umbrella which of course was useless, but In the unlikely even my bag wasn't waterproof, I wanted to prevent any further saturation.  I was also wearing sandals.  This is important because as I entered old beijing (which is quite dirty in spots) and the flood of browning, brackish water came washing over my exposed feet, I thought really hard about wether I had any cuts or abrasions on my feet. Made it back tot he hotel.  Showered.  Not sure what was worse, the shower or the alley.  The bag was Not waterproof.  Luckily nothing was damaged. Took a cab to the Legen of Kung Fu at the Red Theatre (it was great) and back.  Upon my return one of the guys that was usually in the lobby signed for me to have a seat and hang out.  I sighed that I'd go upstairs and come back.