We undertook a tour of Beijing and environs, a very up and down trip.
It seems like pretty much everyone in Daegu does this trip, so we thought, why the heck not? Mark and Jen were going anyway, and Jason and John loved it. I've never been on a group tour before, but I gave it a shot.
Our guide, Roger, was great, but a bit too talkative. He really didn't give us two seconds of peace, without explaining in detail the ring roads, rental prices, history of the communist party, or details of local architecture for several days. On the plus side, we're now wildly well informed on matters such as Beijing tax law.
Other problems being that it was fairly cold, and we got extensive tours of palatial palaces AND their grounds in the blasting north wind. Not that I'm ungrateful, but summer palaces are probably at their best in the summer.
Fortunately, being in a group you can kind of brave the trials together.
On the other plus side, everything is even cheaper than Korea. 30 cents per beer, really does allow you to buy a round for everyone.
The food was good, if well sanitized for us at all the official tour stops. However, the shock of it all proved a bit much for some digestive systems, and we had to contend with a bit of Beijing Belly. On top of that, I got pretty sick on the side, mostly on the day we were in Tiannamen square. That day we ate in the museum, which was awesome. It was straight out of a Bond flick. Huge vaulted ceilings, cold as a mausoleum, and full of gaudy communist memorabilia.
On the actual day of Chinese new year, we had some time off, so a bunch of us went looking for adventure. However, it seems like more of a subdued family holiday, and not much was to be found. (Though I heard later from Jason who was in Shanghai, that it was totally crazy there, so maybe Beijing's just boring and bureaucratic) We did go out for a crazy dinner, in which we basically ordered the craziest stuff we could find. This restaurant was also apparently not used to foreigners, as you could honstly have heard a spoon drop when we first walked into the crowded dining room. Fortunately there were several of us. Anyway, we got snake soup, jelly fish something, and stir fried frog. The jelly fish was truly pestilential, and we had to quietly dispose of it in a plant. The snake soup was good, but salty. The frog was great, but far too bony. Anyway, thanks to Lee who worked all of that out.
The Great Wall was as you may imagine, great. It snowed while we were up there, turning it into a giant luge conduit.
Mark turned out to be a champion haggler. Mostly because he's such a bastard. Anyway, he bought thousands of rolexes, and mao watches to distribute to all family members far and wide, for 5 bucks or something. The peddlers are persistent pains in the ass. They chase us all over the place, and pretty much never, ever leave you alone. And woe betide you if you actually talk to one. Then its a barnacle all the way. Mark really kind of got in trouble that way, especially before we knew about them. Fortunately he recovered himself by being such a champion haggler. He and Jen are real shopaholics too..... you'd never have guessed. Even Corie can't keep up.
One of our number, Steve, constantly got lost and seperated from the group, which suited him fine. The rest of us kept up with the constant refrain of "happy tours!" from Roger. You can tell Rog has been doing this for a while.
We also visited the hutons, small traditional houses, which they are quickly tearing down to make way for apartment blocks. Those areas were awesome. We went over to some poor old lady's house to eat; the food was excellent. She kept pigeons as a hobby. Chinese men really do seem to be obsessed with ping pong. (The Chinese equivalent of Ding Ding Dang (a school in Daegu), is Ping Ping Pang!!)
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