Today, we did the Forbidden City / Great Wall trip. The Forbidden City is amazing, and the Chinese are rennovating it in preparation for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing . They’ve done the west half it looks like, and are working on the east half and will then do the north. I’ll see if I can’t upload some pictures to tell the difference, but when it’s done, it’s going to be fantastic.
I’ll talk more about this later, but first, let me tell you about the Ju Yong Pass.
Back in May, my pal Nick and I went up to the top of the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. I thought it was steep. It was. However, en route to the Ju Yong Pass, our guide laughed at me, at which point everyone else did too.
Then we saw the climb. And it is a climb.
The wall near the Ju Yong Pass is actually a large oval around the pass (which contains a decent sized river). We climbed up one section of the oval to the top, and then down again. You could also climb down the other size and make a loop. The high point we went to was the high point for the region, and somewhere between 1500 and 2000 feet up we estimate. It’s a hike. The nice thing is that there are very few merchants hawking things, as it’s not a high tourist area (and I thought Mutianyu wasn’t bad). But the climb is physically challenging. I’m not in great shape, and while I did heave my butt up there, I was puffing. But once at the top — woot! It’s always a great feeling to make the climb.
Until you see the guy in a sport jacket chain-smoking and holding his girlfriend wearing a miniskirt and 3-inch heels hop on up.
Yeah, OK, some people are in better shape than others. Maybe I do need to join that 20/20 program
We headed down, and met our hosts at a local market for some shopping, then went to the Duck King restaurant (I’ll need to track down the Chinese later) for Peking Duck. I’m normally not a fan of duck, as I find it too fatty, but the stuff there was amazing. Quite good. Although they also had this lobster-meat that was more like spaghetti or ramen that was amazing!
Afterwards, we went to Bodhi at 17 Gong Ti Bei Lu, where we had nice foot massages. This was a treat… you get a room (we had a 5-person room) where they do the massages, and everyone is chatty. It’s a nice social event. I had a lovely massage by #30… they go by number vs name as apparently it’s easier to keep track of, especially for foreigners (Bodhi is near the embassies, so they get a lot of foreigners). Apparently, you need to make a reservation as they’re very busy — +86 (10) 6417-9595. Ask for #30, she’s great, and she’ll get an extra 10 RMB. Apparently, for a random person to give a massage, the commission is only 20 RMB, but if you’re asked for, it’s 30.
We headed home, and everyone except me headed out back to Seattle. I’m here until Tuesday, and today, time to go exploring a bit on my own. Woot!