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Hello chums,
(photos at flickr.com/photos/jilllucas)
Beijing! How quickly the week here has gone! Obviously, my highlight has to be The Great Wall! I was with a group of Australians who were all so friendly and have offered my places to stay when I go there! (oh and of course, getting kidnapped! But i'll get to that later!
It was a whole day trip and we started off at The Ming Temple. The tour guide was great and I think I now know more about Chinese history than I do English! hahaha. Many of the Chinese Emporers are buried there and it was great to see some of their historic buildings, although not as old as ours!! hehehe ; )
On the way out, we had to step through a gate in a particular way! Men with their right foot first, women with their left. ....We then had to say a sentence in Chinese (though obviously, i've forgotten it now!) which was telling the gods and demons that we were just visiting and that we are leaving now, back to earth and their spirits weren't to follow us! it was a good bit of light-hearted fun (well, I hope it was fun and nothing serious, otherwise i've just seriously peee off the gods and demons! ouch!)
Then it was a trip to the jade factory/museum and I have to say that they should not have brought me there! hahaha. After showing us all the different colours of jade (dumbo here thinking it was only green, but oh no, yellow, orange, purple etc etc! all the colours of the rainbow) and how they sculpted it and how to spot a fade piece of jade jewelry....they then took us to a beautiful shop and of course there was jewelry!!!!! I ended up haggling awfully well I have to say and got a jade ring down from 643 pounds to 30! Tis beautiful and i shall show you all it upon my return : )
Then , then, then...it was the Great Wall. There are lots of different areas with which to walk upon and i was on the main piece called 'Badaling'. We had two hours to climb up as far as we could and back again and my god!! It wasn't actually as bad as i thought! Though there was lots and lots and lots of uneven steps, steep inclines and all the like, i managed to climb it and end up in one piece! Obviously, I was as red as a strawberry (or raspberry, which ever is redder!) but i fet ok doing it. Also got a little medal with my name inscribed on it to say that i'd walked the wall on that particular day and it was pretty amazing to see. I had to keep reminding myself where I was actually! As you get so intent on watching where you're going and trying not to fall over, you forget! hahahaa.
So yes, well worth doing! oh, and on the way back, we visted a silk factory/museum and it was really interesting to see where they get the silk from and how things are made etc etc....and of course then they pushed buying quilts, pillows and covers on to us for about 10 minutes!!! it's all sell, sell, sell out here! : (
I've also been to The Forbidden City, Summer Palace and Temple of Heaven. All when it was peee-ing it down with rain and to be honest, once you've seen one of those types of buildings, you've seen them all! eeek, is that wrong and disrespectful of me to say!?? Ah well, tis how I feel! Plus, on the way back the tour guide wanted to take us to try some teas at a Tea house. Well neither I, not the other guy on the tour, liked tea so we said we didn't want to go...but she pretty much told us she was not taking us back to the hostel until we had visited the flippin tea house and drank some flippin tea!! either one of us protesting did nothing to help the matter and I think she wouldn't have been paid if she didn't take us there, so we were forced to drink tea, that frankly, tastd like sopa and manky tea!yuck! But there you go at least I can say that i've been to a proper Chinese Tea house! hmhmmmmmm....
Well, tommorow I am off to Thailand for a two week Northern Tour, then off to the island of Koh Tao to do a weeks diving! woo-hooo! very excited about that and it's over my birthday so what a way to spend it ay?? Then it's Malaysia for a week before the main event....Australia!!!!
Hope y'all are keeping well and looking after yourself. If anyone wants to join me, they are more than welcome!
Jillxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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