Our First Big Trip

Here in China they have a National Holiday from October the 1st through to the 7th. They call this the golden week, however the days that are not worked through the week are then made up on weekends. Strange for us because it doesn't work that way back home.

So we took advantage of the hoilday and flew to Beijing for 4 days to do some exploring. We had a full schedule with a tour guide and driver, you really almost need that so you can find out the history and the legends of the places you are visiting.

We hit the Forbidden City, Ming Tombs, Temple Of Heaven, Tianamens Square,The Great Wall,The Sacred Way and The Summer Palace. Very Surreal to be standing in the temples where famous Chinese Emperiors are known to be buried. Some are places where they lived or where held under house arrest. The Summer Palace was a place an Emperior built for his Mother's 60th Birthday.....but was finished when she was 44 yrs old.  Beautiful place with man made lake and gardens.

We hit the Great Wall...but not the section were everyone travels. There were thousands upon thousands of tourists over the holiday, so our guide suggested we go to a different part...less people!  So we never actually walked the wall we just got to see the section that hasn't been rebuilt yet. The plan is to hopefully return in the off season! Lesson learned,don't travel in an over populated place durings the holidays,it is INSANE!

Chinese are very much infulenced by the art of  Feng Shui and you can see it in all of there design and architecture. All and all it was a great trip, we hit the little shopping alleys to score some deals. It would seems as though isaac has picked up on the wheeling and dealing like it's crack cocaine....the problem being is that he's not very good at it and tends to get ripped off! He hasn't mastered the art of walking away....they will come!!!. I bought some pretty Chinese fans at Ming Tombs probably not the cheapest place to buy things I thought, but I paid 10 rmb each....about $1.60 Cdn.  I went to the market that night and they wanted 165 rmb each!!! about $ 24.00 Cdn!

Long story short I said I bought them at Ming Tombs for 10 rmb each, however he acted as though he didn't believe me. I walked away and said your crazy if you think I will give you any more than 10 rmb......guess what he sold them to me for 10 rmb. Good thing I had seen earlier that day the price of them at a tourist spot with a fixed price....or I would have been royally ripped off!

We tried to explain this to Isaac as some lady is trying to sell him a spinning top with cool lights for almost $10! Hello can you say DOLLARAMA! They see the foreigners coming and we become an easy target.