Michael slept better than I did. I woke up a little early but excited to get the party started. We got our wake up call at 6:30 AM, which would normally totally depress me by having to get up that early, but today it was fine because we were still on California time and had actually been up for a little bit.
We showered, got dressed, and then went down to the complimentary breakfast buffet. Wonderful. Most anything you could imagine they had at the Four Points by Sheraton. Some things were quite unusual, some things were very Asian, and some things we actually recognized. The hardest part was getting some coffee. Their machine was quite different and I couldn’t figure it out and couldn’t find anyone to speak English to help. The line to get coffee was usually around four people deep and went very slow.
We met up with all of our tour at 8:00 AM in the lobby of the Sheraton. There are a total of thirty of us at this point (two will join us later). The second part of the group (ten) were from the East Coast (Delaware, Atlanta, etc.). Nice people. We got on the bus and Emily (our tour guide) told us facts and gave us information on Beijing and China in general. She is quite good and speaks excellent English.
We got to Tiananmen Square and walked through security to get inside. Emily gave us a few minutes to take pictures and such and then off we went to the Forbidden City.
As we were walking around we were approached by many people selling their wares. I couldn’t resist and got a few hats (panda and a military type hat) for $3 (US or $20 Chinese) each. Once we got into the Forbidden City, we went further inside into the Imperial Palace area. HUGE. After doing all that, we exited through the Imperial Garden. So lovely.
While we were walking back to the bus, we saw several severely disfigured people (without limbs and burned) wanting money. There were also many other vendors selling their wares. Always interesting. Emily had already warned us to not look at them and don’t engage. It worked!
We left that area and drove and saw some of the old city and hutongs. I asked Emily about Silk Alley and she said they were moving it into a mall area and it would be more expensive. We saw a different part of Forbidden City than we saw in 2002. Michael and I talked and we figured that Emily did this tour all the time so she just wanted the quickest and easiest route. We still managed to walk over 10,000 steps (according to Michael’s fitbit.)
After the exhausting march through the Square and Forbidden City (and then on to the bus), we got to rest on the bus on the ride to the pearl factory. We figured that’s the only way they can offer these tours so cheap is to have us go to different places (pearl factory, silk factory, Chinese medicine, tea factory) to be offered their “deals.” Emily and the lady inside the pearl factory told us that China is the leader in pearls. She explained that they can now get from 1 to 25 pearls in one shell. She then opened a shell up and took out around 20. She explained about the different colors and the prices.
Emily had explained that for those that weren’t taking the optional tour in the afternoon, we would have to take a taxi from the pearl factory back to the hotel, or wherever we wanted to go. We finished at the pearl factory and walked outside to a busy street and were able to hail a cab quickly. Emily had written down the name of the mall and the name of our hotel in Chinese for the driver, which made it very nice for everyone. The drive was quite a ways and cost us a little over $3 US. Could not believe it as in the States it would have cost at least $50 for that distance.
The taxi driver let us out in front of the mall and we just walked in and looked around. It’s a huge mall. I believe Emily said it was the largest in Beijing, and I believe her. There were five floors of everything you could imagine. Emily said the “food court” was on the fifth floor. What Emily calls a food court and what we call a food court are totally different. The whole floor (and I’m talking about half a mile) was nothing but restaurant after restaurant, and these restaurants could seat at least 100 guests each. HUGE!
We finally settled on a hot pot type restaurant where you dip your meat or vegetable in boiling water and cook it and then dip it in sauce. The waiter didn’t speak any English but the menu had English subtitles that we could figure things out. We did ask for a Coke for me and the waiter brought water. We asked again and he brought some sugary thing that we weren’t sure what it was. Kinda fun. We were finally able to communicate the drink I wanted.
We settled on a small platter of beef, some spinach thing, and a salad. Along with the dishes, we ordered peanut sauce and black bean sauce. The order arrived quickly and we acted like we knew what we were doing by dipping and eating. We even used our chop sticks. Everything was quite good. We especially enjoyed the roasted peanuts in the salad. Nice touch to it instead of croutons. The price was something like $18 US and the whole table was filled with food.
We walked around quite a bit and then left the mall and headed back to the hotel, only about two blocks or so, but stopped a short distance away and went into the fruit and vegetable store to look around. We ended up buying some freshly cut pineapple (done while in the store) for a dessert later in the evening. The rest of the walk back to the hotel was interesting in that we were about the only white people out walking with the locals.
We took a nap when we got back to the hotel. Emily had told us about a massage person who comes to your room for around $40 US for a 90 minute massage. I told her I wanted one and it was scheduled for 7 PM. Right at 7 PM the masseuse arrived and went to work. She had me take off my shirt (because of oil) and covered me with a towel. She did a good job and by the time she was finishing up, I was asleep.
Around 9 PM, we were getting hungry again so we ordered room service. It’s a little spendy but we didn’t feel like going out. We got a club sandwich with fries and a bowl of won ton soup. It cost something like $30 US. The delivery was very quick and the Chinese man who delivered it brought back the change that was meant for his tip. Michael had to explain that it was for him. I guess it’s not really common to tip in China.
After dinner it was time to try to get some sleep and adjust more to China time. That was our day. Hope yours was great!