Day 3 – Beijing
Great Wall, Jade Factory, Cloisonné Factory, Olympic Village.
Today was our 2nd full day in Beijing. Yesterday we visited the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Today our big destination was The Great Wall.
But first…we had to stop at the government-owned “Jade Factory” which is a huge retail complex that sells all kinds of jade products. Everything is “On Sale” in fact they claimed they had an extra discount for Christmas. The prices still seemed high on most items.
We visited a very steep section of the Great Wall, different from the one I visited many years ago. We were able to talk right up to the entrance to the wall. The one I went to before (Badaling) required one to climb up the mountain or ride a trolley up the mountain to the wall. The kids didn’t go too far on the wall because it went straight up the mountain, with steep staircases and tall steps. Sophie got her “I climbed the Great Wall” tee shirt at the gift shop afterwards.
Then we went for lunch at a Cloisonné tourist store. The store was on the ground floor, and the lunch was on the 4th floor in a multistory building…out in the middle of nowhere but next to the high speed rail construction site which is for the future Winter Olympics. There was not much for a vegetarian to eat at this lunch spot – mostly chicken – and the vegetarian dishes (noodles & rice) were eaten up quickly by the girls. We spent way too much ‘shopping’ today. Would have preferred to go to the Ming Temples.
On the way back we stopped by the Olympic complex including the Birds Nest Stadium, the Water Cube, and the Olympic Tower, which were impressive from a distance.
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