Hewro prease? Water, beer, hewro?

The Great Wall is something we both really wanted to see, so November 7th we boarded a tour bus set to go to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. Our tour guide, Tina, provided us with some background information on China and Beijing, while the (according to Tina ‘Master’) bus driver, drove us to our first stop: The Jade Factory. This mandatory (required by government) stop was not really interesting, but it provided a good opportunity to stretch our legs and catch some fresh air. Also, we now know that quality jade is recognizable by a clear ‘chink’ instead of a muffled ‘clunk’ when you hit it with a small stone.

Our next stop brought us to the Ming Tombs. This ‘Feng Shui’-optimal location is the final resting place of some of China’s greatest emperors and even more concubines. Emperors could have as many as 3000 concubines, so it didn’t came as a big surprise that some of them were sacrificed after an emperor died. As we left the complex and headed back to the bus, we bought some water. We were thirsty and unable to withstand another ‘Hewro prease? You speak Engrish? Water, beer, hewro?’ salesperson.

Next up was another mandatory stop, this time at a traditional Chinese herb center. After a lengthy but amusing introduction by a doctor, Yvo had his wrists examined, only to find out that he had heat on his liver. Fortunately this was totally curable by buying a 350 Yuan (40 Euro) herb set. Yvo decided that he would drink the heat away with some good old (Chinese herbal) beer that night

Lunch was different, but in a good way We were lucky, as we shared our table with an excellent English speaking Chinese family, happy to guide us through the Chinese table formalities. Tea turns out to be a great tableware cleaning agent, so after a quick rinse and dry, we were set to start our lunch. To this day we are not sure what we ate, but enjoyed it very much.

In the afternoon we finally made it to the Great Wall. We were to travel up the wall via a cable car and then walk around for an hour or two. The cable car turned out to be cable-less and car-less. In fact, the means by going up can only be described as traumatizing; we had to settle with a giant luge track. We have the whole thing taped, for your future entertainment. The Wall itself was, besides covered with Chinese people, very impressive. We walked for about and hour and a half on it, before it was time to luge down again (also taped).

On our way back to the hotel we opted for a drop-off at the Olympic stadium of which we took some nice evening pictures. As it was getting later, we treated ourselves to nice traditional pour-hot-water-over-it-noodles. What was meant to be a simple dinner, turned out to be a little dinner show for the locals, as they had great fun watching us cope with the noodles. The hike to the nearest subway proved to be more challenging then expected, as we had an outdated map, without the Olympic subway stations on it. We of course asked some people for the nearest subway, but:
A. Nobody spoke English or knew where the subway was
B. Lonely Planet did not bother to add the word ‘Subway’ to their handy little dictionary
C. There’s no way to describe a subway using body language (without being vulgar anyway).

After a two hour walk, while standing on a corner, a British couple helped us out by pointing us to the nearest subway (which was another 30 minute walk). When we finally managed to get back to the hotel, we called it a night.