3d day in Beijing

This was the day when some of Rick’s friends joined us. We went to the Great Wall and to the summer palace during the day and then to a Peking opera at night. Today was def. a tourist day. The great wall is certainly worth seeing, but it’s important to understand that the Badaling section (which is the most popular section for tourists) is almost all new. What you see is a really good reproduction of the third great wall. There were three different versions of the wall, but the first two have all but disappeared. Most of the third one is still around, but in bad shape and not suitable for tourists to go walking along it. So they rebuild parts of the wall for tourists. Like I said, it’s worth seeing, but I wish that we could have gone to see some of the original parts that are still around.

The summer palace is also interesting, but it is also a reproduction. The original was burned to the ground (twice), but they have rebuilt it for the tourists. I think that growing up around Williamsburg has ruined me when it comes to reproductions of older things, I just can’t get into them. This wasn’t even all that old, the last time it was rebuilt was around the 1890’s I believe…

Then we went to the Ming dynasty tombs. The tomb area is a lovely park with a stately walkway lined with stone statues of animals and people. There is only one tomb out of 13 that has been excavated. All sorts of priceless ming dynasty items were recovered, but most of them were lost, stolen, or destroyed by the red guard during the cultural revolution. The tomb itself is impressively big, but not much to look at, just grey walls, and some really big doors. I thought the museum was much more interesting than the tomb itself.

The opera was a really amazing experience. It was entitled “8 immortals cross the sea.” The story as I understand it is that 8 Taoist immortals go to a feast and get really drunk, they are called home and they decide to cross the sea using their magical powers. This upsets a fish fairy for some reason (I think they were churning up the water) and they get into a shouting match, then they fight. That’s about all I could make of the story, I have no idea who won the fight, they fought and fought, and then it ended. The whole thing lasted a little over an hour, the fighting probably took up 35 minutes of it. Lots of acrobatics, lots of spear hacky sack techniques (people would throw spears at the woman playing the fish fairy and she would kick them to other people or to herself, she would kick from behind her back, in front, etc, and she would catch behind her back, laying on the ground, etc. Quite an amazing performance. The music was a bit tough to listen to. Peking opera does not seem to place importance on the things that western music is based on like harmony and melody. It’s a bit discordant and screechy. Still, it’s something that you should check out if you ever get the chance.

After we got out of the opera, we went to dinner and then we did what has to be my favorite thing so far, we went to a reflexology place. We had done quite a bit of walking that day and our feet were tired and a little sore. It was really amazing to see everyone bow to you as you walked through the place, there must have been 10 people saying “Ni Howw” (Hello or welcome in Mandarin) and bowing to us. FIrst they take off your shoes and socks and put them in hot water with various herbs in it and let your feet soak. It takes 15 or 20 minutes for your feet to soak, so in the meantime, they work on your shoulders, arms, and neck. Everyone got a masseuse of the opposite gender, the woman who had me was a cute, petite thing with fiercesomly strong hands. I would hate to have to receive a strong handshake from her, she’d crush my hand like a grape. Like all therapeutic massages, there were some decidedly painful parts, but it was all worth it. After they were through doing our upper body, they took our feet out of the water, rubbed some cream into our feet and went to work on them. Man oh man did it feel good/hurt like hell. On both the upper body and the feet, they did several press and hold techniques that were quite uncomfortable, but felt incredible once they stopped. Anyway, we were all quite relaxed and happy by the end of it, it took a little over an hour. It cost the grand total of around 24 bucks per person plus tip, it was well worth it, I’ll probably do it again before I leave…

tag/travel” rel=”tag”>travel beijing china great wall opera peking massage foot