Great Wall of China

We boarded the bus at the Beijing Ritz Carlton Financial Street at 7 am for our visit to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. We had gone to breakfast in the hotel dining room at 6 am. This breakfast was much more Western than our previous stays. Although most of the hotels offered eggs of some sort, the breakfast was largely Asian in influence. Here just the opposite was true. Most of the items on the buffet were to US and European tastes with some Chinese choices. We had some of the shrimp dumplings (bao), fresh fruit (melons, dragonfruit, pineapple) and Chinese noodles.

With traffic in Beijing it took nearly 90 minutes to arrive at the location to visit the Great Wall. The highway to access the visitor area is on the major route north from Beijing. That and the upcoming national holiday means that traffic was very heavy even at the time we left the hotel.

Mary at the Great Wall of China

We arrived at the Badaling section of the Great Wall around 8:30 and noticed immediately that the air temperature was much cooler. We were pleased that there didn’t appear to rain clouds in the sky but there was a slight breeze so we all took jackets. Patrick gave us tickets for the funicular rail up the mountain and we went up the incline. At an altitude of over 6000 feet we could feel a much cooler air temperature. The major issue was the wind. The howling wind made the air seem very much cooler. We were all bundled up to keep the wind from freezing us.

Our group at the Great Wall of China

We walked down the Great Wall in the steeper direction until we came to a section that we thought was too steep. Since we liked the view from that spot we decided to take a few snapshots then walk the other direction. We turned around and started walking the other way passing the point where we started. As we approached the end point for this section of wall several in our group told us that a Chinese couple was fighting up on the wall. As we approached we saw a Chinese lady really smacking a man around. He was making little attempt to defend himself. He was scratched and red from her smacks and scratches. Someone eventually got security to separate the two.

We took a number of snapshots of the wall and surrounding countryside then walked back to the interpretative trail just below the Great Wall. There was some signage indicating the UNESCO World Heritage Site status but there really wasn’t enough information that either of us would consider it an interpretative trail. We stayed bundled up as much as possible in the strong wind then made our way down the mountain on the funicular rail around 10:30.

Great Wall of China

We took the bus for a 40 minute ride to a company that makes jade, jadeite and nephrite carvings and jewelry. A speaker talked to us about the three materials and what each was best suited for. She also taught us how to recognize genuine materials from reproductions and how to determine one grade of jade from another. She discussed the art of carving jade and the various shapes of jade carvings and what each shape symbolizes. After a quick walk around the store we went upstairs to lunch which was the common family style lunch. Most items on the table were familiar from previous meals but we thought it was good. We went back to the sales area after lunch and bought some jade jewelry items for family and friends.

Statue of a Ming general along the Sacred Way

We finished our day by going to the Ming tombs which is the area where the emperors from the Ming Dynasty are buried. We walked along the Sacred Way admiring the stone statuary from the 1300s depicting generals, warriors and animals. Since the day was beautiful and sunny we enjoyed the walk. We took a lot of photos of some of the more interesting statues. On the way back to our hotel our bus passed by many of the sites from the 2008 Olympic Games. We got back to the Beijing Ritz Carlton in the Financial District around 4:30 to rest after our travels.

We elected to not have the optional Peking duck dinner with the group.  Instead we went into town with a group of about 30 from the group who made the same decision. We had eaten duck on several occasions over the past few weeks, and we just wanted a more low key evening. Because our guide, Patrick, took the 30 or so visitors to the duck dinner we got in David’s bus to ride into the restaurant.

Our bus let us off in an area of inner city Beijing where a lot of small shops and restaurants catering to local residents are located. We walked down an alley (Hutong) to the entrance of the small restaurant. We were in a room with the four of us as well as Keith and Krystal from Greenville, SC. We enjoyed chatting with Keith about some of their recent travels to Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean and the Yucatán. Krystal shared her enthusiasm for essential oils with us. Because she has a very limited diet she was unable to eat any of the plated dinners we were served but planned to eat some of the snacks in the hotel bar after we returned. The name of the restaurant cracked us up, Grandmas Kitchen! It was obviously for local Chinese despite the name.

The restaurant staff did not speak any English but David did a great job of communicating our needs to the waiters and cooks. We had a choice of meat loaf, chicken cordon bleu or a vegetable roll. The meal started with vegetable tomato soup followed by a garden salad with Thousand Island dressing. Everyone in our room had the chicken which was not a typical preparation for chicken cordon bleu but was really quite good. The chicken was pounded thin and stuffed with a mix of chopped ham, cheese and mashed potatoes. It was rolled in a light crumb coating and baked perfectly. There was broccoli and garlic bread on the side. Dessert was a very good slice of apple cake. We enjoyed our meal and chat with Keith and Krystal very much.

We returned to the Ritz Carlton after dinner. Mary and Cindy played cribbage while Mark and I read. We turned in early since had a busy day planned for tomorrow in Beijing.

Old Shanghai

Because our internal clocks are still running on Eastern Time, we both awoke at 2 am this morning. I guess our brains still recognize it as 2 pm. We did some reading and watched the British CNN before showing and dressing to go to breakfast at the Shanghai Four Seasons Hotel at 6:30. We ate with a nice couple from Cincinnati. The breakfast was very good. There was a nice mix of American and Chinese traditional breakfast favorites. We especially liked the fruit selections although it took a while for us to recognize the cut dragon fruit. 

Shanghai Skyline

From breakfast we boarded thee buses to drive to the Huangpu River that divides old and modern Shanghai. Our guide, “Patrick” pointed out many of the buildings in both areas and their importance or history. Our group especially enjoyed the beautiful buildings in the Bund area that were built in the late 1800s when Shanghai was an important link between the East and West.  We watched the shipping traffic on the river then drove to the Old Shanghai Quarter where we went to the historic Yu Gardens. This area is only about 2 acres in size and didn’t have a lot of variety of flowers but had many carvings and rockeries. We admired the many carved stone figures, lions and dragons throughout the gardens and on the walls.

Zig zag bridge at Yu Gardens

Although small, the Yu Gardens were beautiful and interesting. We were struck by the zig zag paths, bridges and walkways. We later learned that Chinese traditional belief holds that evil forces are unable to go around sharp turns. Similarly, many of the buildings in the Yu Gardens as well as throughout older areas of China have a high threshold at the doors. This is because they believed the evil spirits could not get over this obstacle.

Rooftop dragon at Yu Gardens

After leaving Yu Gardens we walked around many of the shops in Old Shanghai. We stopped in a couple of tea shops and sampled the selections of tea being sold. Shanghai has a long history in the preparation and marketing of tea. We went to a shop selling silk clothing that is operated by the Chinese government. Silk also has been a major part of the Shanghai economy for centuries. This shop sells only the highest quality silk and is priced very high. Cindy picked up a couple of scarves but we were priced out of most items.

Hand embroidered red panda on silk

On the way to lunch we stopped at shop where hand silk embroidery is done on silk cloth. These beautiful images typically take months for the artist to create. Patrick told us that in the past young women of high social standing would do beautiful embroidery to demonstrate their suitability as a wife.  The silks were priced from $2000 to $10,000 US dollars which makes sense given the time and skill required. We did fine until Mary saw a hand embroidered red panda cub. It was priced at $5000 but the salesman said that we would come down on the price since the frame had a scratch on it. He said that a similar item from the same artist recently sold for nearly 70,000 Yuan which is about $10,000 US dollars. We considered the art but kept moving as she thought about it. When he offered it at $2400 including shipping we decided to make the purchase. We didn’t want it shipped until after October 2 since we will be here in China until then. Also, October 1-8 is a national holiday in China so it will be mid-October before it will ship. The little panda is pretty cute and will be a great addition to our new home.

Mary & Cindy shopping in Old Shanghai

We had a dim sum lunch that had many traditional Chinese foods. We especially liked the dumpling which is a bread or dumpling surrounding a bit of pork, There was rice, noodles, meats, soups and vegetables that were placed on a turntable in the center of our table so we could eat family style. Everyone enjoyed the meal.

After lunch we had some free time in Old Shanghai that we spent walking around and checking out local shops and attractions before taking the bus to the Shanghai Museum. Our guides, Patrick and Sissy, provided us with devices that we could use to tell us more about selected exhibit items in English by pressing buttons on the remote control sized devices. The museum was large with many rooms on each of the four floors. We decided to start in the jade room of the fourth floor where we saw ancient items made of jade that have been dated to be as much as 4000 years old. Ceremonial swords and disks called bi were carved of jade stone at a time when no metal tools were available. From the jade rooms we went to the furniture rooms and saw ornately carved and lacquered chairs, thrones, beds and other items made from exotic Asian, Indian and African woods like sandalwood, rosewood and ebony. There were also items that were finished with the red lacquer that is so unique to Chinese furniture. We realized that we were nearly at the end of the 90 minutes that we had available for the museum.

Steve & Mary on the bus in Shanghai

We caught out bus back to the Four Seasons for a brief rest and to prepare for the evening activity. Since we will be flying to Wuhan on Sunday we did some packing and preparing for the next week. We went to the hotel restaurant for dinner which was a lot of seafood, sushi and many other Chinese and western foods. For desert, I had a bowl of ice cream, a small scoop each of ginger and matcha which is a flavor from tea. Both were very good.

After dinner we went to the room to prepare for the evening activity, a show of Chinese acrobats at the Portman Ritz Carlton. The bus arrived at 7 pm and the show started promptly at the advertised time of 7:30. The acrobats were very talented and put on a great show. I guess we expected the kind of plate juggling stunts that our generation used to see on the Ed Sullivan show but there was a nice variety of comedy, romantic and artistic scenes that concluded promptly at 9 pm as scheduled. We kept nodding off during the show not because it wasn’t good but rather because we are off our sleep schedules.

We finalized our packing and put our bags out to be taken to the airport for our part of the trip that will be on the ship.