Beijing, part 3
My second day tour in Beijing, we started with a jade "factory". We got a lesson in how to tell the difference between fakes, lower quality quartz and real jadeite (they all sound differently when tapped, and real jade has a cloudiness when held up to light). We also got to watch people at work carving the jade. Then we were given plenty of time to browse the showroom.
Our next stop was the Underground Palace of the Ming Tombs. Like the Egyptian pharaohs, the Chinese emperors built elaborate tombs for themselves, stocked with everything they would need in the afterlife. The Ming tombs are where 13 of the 16 Ming dynasty emperors were buried. The one we got to see is the only one that has been excavated. The rest are being left alone, because of the unacceptable rate of deterioration that was occurring when the first tomb was excavated. Much of this palace is not ornate at all. Instead, it's very simple. But it included a chamber where the coffins were left during the funeral, and the actual burial chamber. One of the stairways had a ceiling decoration of a dragon, with a large pearl hanging under it. We were told that one of the emperor's thrones had one like it on at the ceiling above it. If anyone other than the emperor sat on the throne, the dragon would drop the pearl, killing the intruder.
Next on the tour, the Great Wall. And it really was great. We were at a section called Mutianyu, in a very mountainous area. Because it is such a long and steep climb to the wall itself there, they've installed a chairlift up to the base of the wall. At this point in my tour, there were only 3 of us, so we stuck together and rode up the chairlift, then climbed the stairs onto the wall itself. For a few minutes, we just stood there trying to absorb the fact that "holy cow! We're on the Great Wall of China!!" From that point, the wall climbs the mountain in either direction, disappearing over the topos of the mountains. There's a fair bit you can walk on, but some of it is really steep, with worn and uneven stairs. We walked to a couple of the stations, which are the square buildings every few hundred yards. And we climbed onto the roof of one of them. The views were just amazing. We of course all took pictures of each other with the wall in the background. On the way down, instead of the chairlift, the guy in our group took the toboggan ride down, which is like the alpine slide for any upstate NY people. He said it was ok, but he didn't go very fast, and it was still over too quickly. Plus, there wasn't the great view we had up in the chair lift, and no chance to take pictures.
Once we were back in Beijing, we went to the silk factory. Another really fast demonstration, followed by time to shop in the silk showrooms. I've seen silk reeling before, but I did still learn that some of the silk cocoons have 2 worms instead of one, and the 2 threads are wound around each other, making it impossible to separate the threads. Those cocoons aren't unwound. Instead they are just stretched bigger and bigger, and used for filling quilts. Each cocoon can be stretched to the size of a quilt. Then at least a hundred stretched cocoons are used to fill a quilt. They're sold by weight, so different ones have different numbers of cocoons. After another hard sell, we escaped with our wallets intact, and headed back to our hotels.
The next day, Monday, I headed back ago Hong Kong, and on Wednesday, Juliana and I flew to Viet Nam. We head out onto our tour tomorrow, which will take 3 days.
Our next stop was the Underground Palace of the Ming Tombs. Like the Egyptian pharaohs, the Chinese emperors built elaborate tombs for themselves, stocked with everything they would need in the afterlife. The Ming tombs are where 13 of the 16 Ming dynasty emperors were buried. The one we got to see is the only one that has been excavated. The rest are being left alone, because of the unacceptable rate of deterioration that was occurring when the first tomb was excavated. Much of this palace is not ornate at all. Instead, it's very simple. But it included a chamber where the coffins were left during the funeral, and the actual burial chamber. One of the stairways had a ceiling decoration of a dragon, with a large pearl hanging under it. We were told that one of the emperor's thrones had one like it on at the ceiling above it. If anyone other than the emperor sat on the throne, the dragon would drop the pearl, killing the intruder.
Next on the tour, the Great Wall. And it really was great. We were at a section called Mutianyu, in a very mountainous area. Because it is such a long and steep climb to the wall itself there, they've installed a chairlift up to the base of the wall. At this point in my tour, there were only 3 of us, so we stuck together and rode up the chairlift, then climbed the stairs onto the wall itself. For a few minutes, we just stood there trying to absorb the fact that "holy cow! We're on the Great Wall of China!!" From that point, the wall climbs the mountain in either direction, disappearing over the topos of the mountains. There's a fair bit you can walk on, but some of it is really steep, with worn and uneven stairs. We walked to a couple of the stations, which are the square buildings every few hundred yards. And we climbed onto the roof of one of them. The views were just amazing. We of course all took pictures of each other with the wall in the background. On the way down, instead of the chairlift, the guy in our group took the toboggan ride down, which is like the alpine slide for any upstate NY people. He said it was ok, but he didn't go very fast, and it was still over too quickly. Plus, there wasn't the great view we had up in the chair lift, and no chance to take pictures.
Once we were back in Beijing, we went to the silk factory. Another really fast demonstration, followed by time to shop in the silk showrooms. I've seen silk reeling before, but I did still learn that some of the silk cocoons have 2 worms instead of one, and the 2 threads are wound around each other, making it impossible to separate the threads. Those cocoons aren't unwound. Instead they are just stretched bigger and bigger, and used for filling quilts. Each cocoon can be stretched to the size of a quilt. Then at least a hundred stretched cocoons are used to fill a quilt. They're sold by weight, so different ones have different numbers of cocoons. After another hard sell, we escaped with our wallets intact, and headed back to our hotels.
The next day, Monday, I headed back ago Hong Kong, and on Wednesday, Juliana and I flew to Viet Nam. We head out onto our tour tomorrow, which will take 3 days.