Day 98. Kyle & Leanne joint blog.

We arise early to meet our Beijing tour guide, Grace.  She’s perky and by the book. Grace will accompany us through our next two days here in Beijing.  

First stop, bam!  Great Wall of China.  Hmm, going for the gusto right up front. After the 1.5 hour van ride, we assemble while Grace gets the tickets.  After gaining entrance, the kids need to go to the bathroom. The line for the women’s toilet is much longer than the men’s (as is usually the case) so when the boys are finished, they wander into the souvenir shop.  Grace keeps asking me where everyone is.  The girls finally come back and Ashley & Ashlynn see the boys in the souvenir shop and make a beeline for the store.  Grace is giving me the “look.” I am becoming worried that Grace is to become apoplectic if we don’t pick up the pace and we are only 2 hours into our first day.  I’m guessing Grace hasn’t managed a tour with seven people including five teenagers before.

After re-assembling, we ascend a respectable hill towards a cable car that will take us high in the sky to the Great Wall.  The Wall is divided in five different segments and is over 13,000 miles long in total.  It was built over 2,000 years ago by Emperor Qin, the first Chinese Emperor who unified China. It was later restored and fortified ~1,300 during the Ming Dynasty.  Hmm… we don’t think it was paid for by another country either.  These days, it wouldn’t surprise us if China refurbished the Wall and sent Trump the bill.

The Great Wall steps are quite steep in parts and often uneven on purpose.  Since the wall was originally built to protect China from barbaric warriors from the North, the steps were strategically built in varying heights in order to trip invaders and “crack their skulls open” as John shares.  It was enough to scare Leanne into walking at a snail’s pace. 

Living up to its legend, the Great Wall is majestic and awe-inspiring.  It is the first “Wonder of the Modern World” we have visited on the trip this year.  We were surprised to see more Chinese citizens visiting than international tourists as we have found the opposite at most UNESCO World Heritage sites we’ve been to.  So we ask Grace why. 

“In China,” she shares “90 percent of the tourists are from within China.” Grace further explains, “it is a dream of the Chinese people to visit the wall in their lifetimes at least once.”  We see families with large picnic lunches who find shady corners to enjoy a bite together. We witness a young person help an elder up the steep stairs. Despite the heat, most everyone is happy to be there enjoying this world-renown treasure.   The mountains surrounding us still have a hint of fog enveloping them, making our photos hold that misty characteristically Chinese glow.  It was a great privilege to experience this legendary experience alongside so many countrymen and women. Justin fun fact – The Great Wall is the only man-made object that is visible from space with the naked eye.

After the wall, Grace takes us to one of those restaurants that cater to tour groups.  Just so happens that this restaurant is strategically located next to a jade shop.  “Coincidence?” You might ask. We don’t think so. Of course when Grace offers us the chance to see jade carving, I innocently agree — leading the clan into a classic “reel-em-in-after-food” tourist trap.  The stop is marketed as “now we will see how Jade is made,” when in fact, “it should be marketed as smooth sales guys will descend on you and try to sell you Jade you didn’t know you needed and oh, yeah, there’s a few guys in the corner working on carving the Jade.”

And we fell hook, line and sinker for the tourist trap. Upon entering, we are greeted by a very friendly demonstration person. He shares with us the craft of cutting jade, showing us his three craftsmen cutting and polishing jade. We learn how jade is revered and he explains the symbolism of several finished pieces.  Then “Boom!” Before we can say Jade, the friendly “demonstration guide” turns into “smooth salesman” who could have sold sand to us Californians.  

We are led into a gigantic store showroom. It just so happens, there are now 87 of that same ancient masterpieces in varying sizes in the showroom and not so coincidentally, are 50 percent off. We now realize the hook is in our mouths as the kids start down different aisles of this now massive jade showroom we are in.  The teens have clones of Smooth Salesman hovering near them now making their smooth as silk sales pitches.  Oh great!

By now, Leanne is thinking we better get out of here quickly or we might be going home with a jade sink.  This guy is that good; he’s already heard half of our life stories in about 5 minutes flat.  He’s shooting the bull pretty well here with Kyle.  Leanne is thinking she needs to hit the “how to eject store gracefully with seven people alive” button now.  Fortunately, after 30 more minutes, we settled for a few small purchases but at least we don’t have to re-tile a bathroom. 

We are thrilled to see Mr. Shi, our van driver, as by now jet lag is kicking in hard. Several of us nap on the way back to Beijing. The plan was to hit another World Heritage site, The Temple of Heaven, in the afternoon but we end up sitting on a street not moving for 35 minutes as some driver has hit a tree in a head head-on collision.  As a result, we miss the last entry time to Temple of Heaven.   Apparently the Jade Buddha statue we just bought either doesn’t work or we need to rub it a lot more to get better luck tomorrow. 

So instead we just attend an earlier show of the Legend of Kung Fu Show, a high-energy acrobatic drama about the tale of a boy who becomes a monk.  It’s been performed over 10,000 times and for dignitaries from ambassadors to Nobel Prize Winners (and now us).  The jet lag and day hit Kyle and he falls asleep as soon as the show starts while the Leanne and kids watch enraptured.  Later at dinner, Leanne will ask everyone what their favorite part of the show was and Kyle responds, “waking up.” 

Afterwards, we have a traditional Chinese family meal at the Peking Duck restaurant just a block from the Red Theatre.  We get to watch the chef cook the duck on a mobile cooking station. Our conversation starter topic question was: “What is one thing you are better at now compared to the beginning of the trip?”  Answers ranged from “managing money better” to “walking 10 miles a day” to “being a more adventurous eater” to “being more patient.”  While Leanne may have preferred to hear “I’m better at recognizing a Neo-lithic artifact now”, we will take what we can get.  The food is good and everyone has, in fact, become a more adventurous eater.

Overall a fabulous day in Beijing - jade and all.  Snuggly in the hotel, we decide to have fun watching Chinese TV.  When we turn on the TV, the very first channel (ahead of even China TV channels) is CNN with a political commentator bashing on Trump.  “Another Coincidence?” you might ask.  Again, we think not. The only other English channel is HBO which is showing the movie Crazy Rich Asians.  We decide to go with HBO (well actually it’s not much of decision between watching CNN or a comedy movie).

Later, as we try to sleep, the Chinese government has other plans.  At midnight, a dry-run fireworks show starts going off in Tiananmen Square in preparation for next week’s 70th anniversary parade. The thing is it’s not just fireworks, there are also tremendous bangs that sound massive bombs exploding that could wake the dead. No need for the Game of Thrones Night King to raise the dead when you have Beijing fireworks bombs.  The first barrage of bomb blasts goes off and we rush to the window to watch.  Leanne snaps a few pictures and then the fireworks abruptly stop.  We wait a few minutes and go back to bed.  We are just falling back asleep when 10 minutes later, another barrage of bomb blasts but the fireworks have stopped by the time we get to the window.  Back to bed. 10 minutes later, bombs going off for 30 seconds then silence. Repeat…over and over and over.  Kyle has dubbed this “Chinese Fireworks Torture” and it lasts until 2am.

From forbidden attractions to restrictions on our evening to now fireworks interfering our sleep, this 70th event is already a bit too much for us.  But we fought so hard for these visas (see Sydney blogs) we are definitely going to have a good time here! 70th or not!