With a bus departure schedule at 8:30, I had a chance to update the journal that morning. Everyone one is excited for this day as it is our day to go to the great wall. All of us wanted to get to the wall early to climb in the cool of the morning. Our guide however, forced us into a madatory stop enroute. The government jade store. It is a requirement for guides to stop at these government sponsored tourist stops. We are very tired of having to go to these mandatory stops for purchases. It really is a racket and joke. You are chased by an attendant everytime you stop to look at one item. I just go outside and wait until it is time that we can go. Although some of the items are a decent price, the polite attendant trailing you does not make for ease of shopping. Anyway, everyone complained about the stop and after much negotiating with our guide we got him to switch the order of the required tourist stop to after the great wall climb. This was one of the best decisions made all day. We headed into the foothills and came upon the wall. It is an amazing site. The parking lot though already filled with tour buses, was cool from a breeze coming off the mountain. Our guide only gave us one and one half hours to climb. The section of the wall formed a circuit and had we all had 4 - 5 hours we would have been able to cover the circuit, but that of course would mean missing one ming dynasty tomb and one tourist shop. So we hiked up as fast and as far was we could in our time allotment. I of course was not disappointed by the wall. It is amazing and we all enjoyed getting out and moving again. Some of the students who had partied late at the club the night before didn't summit but those of us who did got a great view amist the smog. It looked like a day where there are really bad forest fires burning and you have limited visibility of the mountains. The pollution in Beijing is unbelievable. There are days of haze. I have a picture of sunrise. The normal yellow fresh sun is a small orange fireball in the horizon and barely visible at that. Thereafter you can not see the sun at all. A student who had been in China 5 years earlier commented that the pollution has worsened considerable. I fear that this country hasn't even begun to feel the effects of pollution as the modernization is outstripping any conservation and environmental efforts. Once again, the west coast climate I believe will be a direct recipient of these changes as the weather for the west coast will changes, jet streams will not be normal. My allergies have been the worst yet here in Beijing. Thank goodness for opticrom and nasalcrom.
The descent down from the great wall was fine until about the second tower and coming up the stairs was a mass of people. They were moving at a pace of about 30 seconds per stair. Unbelievable. Our group would have been in this human sea of people had we been forced to stay at the government sponsored jade store. The only way I was able to navigate down is that I got into step with a Beijing police cadet corps group. The were clipping along so I slide into their pack and figured if I misstepped I would only fall forward into them. It was a human mosh pit. Any fall would be cushioned by a mass of human bodies. I should stop and describe the steps up. No two steps are the same height. You go from a 3 inch rise to an 18" inch rise. So it really is like hiking and skipping down a boulder step trail. The steps are also well worn in areas from the sheer mass of people using them, especially on either rail edge side. I was in the middle of the steps, again hopping down with the training cadets who were carrying a flag. It worked and I made good time getting down whereas I would have never been able to break throw the mass individually. So luck sometimes is with me. The students stayed up on top longer, so they found a back trail down, which I saw but the sign said way down, temple ???. I figured it was just a way down to the temple and not down the mountain. They took the chance and it worked out great for them as they missed the mass migration upwards.
After the wall we headed to the jade factory which is a showroom for tourists. We heard the required speech and then were captives in the showroom until the required 1.5 hours expired. I can't believe that the jade showroom merited the same amount of allotted time as the great wall. But that has been par for the course on this journey. I did not criticize our hosts or the people. What I do criticize is that the objectives of our tour were not clearly articulated to them and our expectations. Expect and inspect. Our as one of our MBA classmates calls the six P's - Prior planning precludes piss poor performance. So this comment could not be more on target.
From the jade factory, where I sat outside in the parking lot, we went to lunch. The lunch was at a friendship store. Another government tourist shop. The food there was terrible - which was unfortunate as everyone was hungry from the hike. The only redeeming item from lunch was the gelato stand in the store. Green tea gelato is actually pretty good. We also met up with some tourist on the train from
Xi'an to Beijing. Their tour is also hitting the same required government stops. Go figure. From lunch we went to the Ming tomb. Once again we had to negotiate with our guide to shorten the time spent at the tomb to please take us out to the olympic park to see the bird's nest olympic stadium and swimming cube pavilion. Our stop consisted of pulling off a freeway off ramp on the far side of the toll road and observing the building from about 1/2 mile out. The structure is very beautiful, impressive and an engineering marvel. Everyone took pictures as best they could.
On the way back into town we passed through the financial and commerical district. Where we saw highrises for HP, Motorola, China Telcom and so the list goes on. Why were these firms not contacted to host a lunch with us? Why were letters not sent to them to let them know we are here. We would have been happy to speak with a low level manager? Why would they not be interested in talking to the students? These kids are very bright actually. I think they would have loved to had a chance to do something with us had the contact been made and purpose of our trip explained.
Dinner was in a neighborhood resturant. The food probably would have been fine if the menu selection had not been "dumbed" down to satisfy the general american taste. But we have been in China for over two weeks now and know what good food is. What we received was not good food, but greasy unflavorful dishes chosen by our tour guide to cater to what he believe we might like. We arrived at the hotel at 8PM and requested internet access for our rooms. They came up to see that the wire was live. But that does not fix the fact that the hotels central router is down and not handling requests. Try to explain that in Chinese!!!
I did however, manage to get a call out to my father for father's day. Getting to hear my parents voice and that all was fine in Yreka was music to my ears. It sounds like my dogs are doing fine and that their true charming as well as mischevious personalities have been observed by my parents. So the day ended on that high note of a call home and my thoughts are heading back to facing the year end
closing of the books. Preparation of the budget which was delayed due to this trip and other deadlines that preceeded getting it out to the City Council. At least I have had a break and I do believe that is important. This is the first time I have been away from work for over two days, since starting there in Dec. 04. So it was time to take some time away.
I need to wrap up and get ready for the final day of sightseeing - the summer palace and bazaar.
