China 3
Thursday
Jade factory, surprisingly interesting. Very expensive. Did not buy.
We drove past the Birds nest stadium on the way out of the city and were finally able to match one of Allen's statistics with one of my own. Birds nest stadium holds 86,000 people, the millenium stadium 74,000.
We were taken to a government run Jade factory as one of our obligatory tourist trips, which was surprisingly interesting. Some of the huge things they make are incredible. I also like the eternal balls of (family?) happiness - balls of 3-6 concentric spheres all carved from one black of jade.
Jade though is really expensive - £60 for a ball, £190 for the ring of jade being coiled around by a dragon that I liked as a pendant. It was an awful lot to pay, especially having bought pearls yesterday. We didn't purchase, inspite of some pleasantly pushing sales technique and a large discount for moon festival day.
We stopped for lunch - a really nice potato and aubergine dish and the ubiquitous chicken, peppers and peanuts but the star was roll your owner spring rolls. A rice pancaked and some noodle and bean sprout mix of go int he middle of it. Yummy
We went to Mutianyu, which is about 90-120 minutes from Beijing and where there is a cable car from base station to the wall. The crowds soon thinned out and we had a nice walk along the walks, except for the final near verticle section that we foolishly decided to do in heat and humidity. The feat of construction is pretty amazing. Unfortunately with the cloud we couldn't see what must have been superb views, but ghostly mountains are pretty atmospheric. Very glad we went.
The festival of the full moon was in full swing when we got to the lake and unfortunately we missed out on the mongolian hot pot (steamboat) restaurant. Instead we ate churros with ice cream and jam and pork floss bubble pancakes, both of which were good,
The lakeshore was crowded with happy families and gangs of friends, with everyone in good spirits and loads of really smiley children. There were loads of pedaloos out on the water, along with some more traditional boats, but they all had a central table, so you could picnic whilst others pedaloo'd. We wandered around, failed to find some hutongs and had a few drinks at a bar. (allthe bars had people singing. Sometimes in English. Sometimes you had to listen to most of a song to work out that it was an english song though!
On the way home we passed a happy looking duck, with its feet tied together, standing on the back of a moped. I'm really hoping it was being taken home to lay eggs, but I fear the worst for that duck.
