Acrobatics and the Great Wall

April 10, 2012

I met my Trans-Siberian tour group Monday night. The group consists of seven travelers: two retired Aussie teachers, a semi-retired Englishman, a retired Canadian (my roommate), two Aussie sisters (18 and 24), and me; our Russian guide, Bob; and two-guides-in-training, Svetlana and Natalia. It seems like a nice group, and I think three weeks is to be a good amount of time with a group—enough time to get to know people pretty well, but not enough time to get to know each too well. At our introduction meeting we went over Intrepid rules (no drugs and no prostitution—neither buying nor rendering services as one of the Aussie sisters clarified), looked over our itinerary, and each received a pair of chopsticks (to use in order to save the Russian forests from being destroyed in the production of disposable ones). We then headed to my first Chinese dinner—one that included bok choy and Peking duck. I do like Chinese food.

Dinner with the crew: Ann, David, Natalia, Alicia, and Kathryn

Guide Bob, Svetlana, Ken, and Ann

 

Do I snack on the large or small pickled chicken feet?

The following morning was an early start to our trip to the Great Wall of China with a local guide. We learned all sorts of little tidbits of Chinese history on the way. My favorites include how during a particular Mongolian rule (there is a long history of fighting and exchanging power), the Mongolians classified the Chinese society into 10 levels: emperors followed by Buddhists at the top of the hierarchy and prostitutes, intellectuals, and beggars filling the bottom three rungs. Yes, prostitutes were regarded more highly by the Mongolians than intellectuals—at least they worked for their money. (As a side note, this classification led to intellectuals being disparagingly referred to as “smelly number nines” during the Cultural Revolution—who knew?)  I also enjoyed learning how the Mongolians attacked China even after the Great Wall was complete and at one point kidnapped the emperor. Unfortunately for this emperor, his little brother was happy to take his place on the throne and didn’t bother to negotiate for the elder’s return. Their plan of ransom foiled, eventually the Mongolians just returned the elder back for nothing in exchange. The kidnapped emperor returned to the thrown but was less than memorable in his rule. In fact, he wasn’t even allowed to be buried with the other thirteen emperors of the dynasty. He did leave a mark on ruling culture in his death, however: he requested to be buried alone instead of his having childless concubines killed and buried with him as was the tradition of the time.  Fortunately, this was the beginning of the end of this practice.

To sit...

... or squat?
Signs on the restrooms at the Wall. Love it!

 We arrived at the wall and I was told it was a good day to visit because the sky was clear enough that you could actually see the towers on the wall from the parking lot. It was also a nice temperature for traversing the steps, and I managed to cover the complete section open to the public in the few hours we had there. The Wall is amazing. Cherry blossoms were blooming and the wall goes on as far as you can see in either direction.

Great Wall, here I come!

End of the line

As far as the eye can see.

In the other direction...

Cherry blossoms!

We had a couple hours of free time in the afternoon before heading to the acrobatic show in the evening. I used the time to buy a new suitcase. I had a hard time deciding whether I should splurge to buy a high-quality bag or just hope a cheapie would hold up. I ended up deciding on a cheapie figuring it only had to last me another couple months. Update on the suitcase to come.

We took the subway to the acrobat show.
There was a bit of a traffic jam going down the stairs.

The evening acrobatic show was incredible. Acts ranged from a juggler juggling nine balls on a circular platform four feet in diameter to 10 girls riding/balancing on each other on a single bicycle. My favorite act was probably the tumbling during which the athletes summersaulted, cartwheeled, twisted, and flipped through one or two hoops the size of a hula-hoop raised three to seven feet off the ground. Less jazzy but equally impressive were the umbrella woman who managed to balance, flip, and twirl open umbrellas on her toes and the man balancing, swinging, and riding a six-foot tall unicycle on a slack tightrope. (Oxymoron? Don’t know how else to describe it.)

After the show I took advantage of being back in a land of cheap massage and decided to pamper my feet with a foot massage before heading home. The massage vacillated between pleasure and pain, but the pain was in that this-has-to-be-doing-my-body-good vein, so I grinned and bore it. Most of the massage was traditional kneading and pressing, but toward the end the masseur brought out a suction cup to use on my feet and ended the massage by drumming up and down my legs with little mallets.

I would have been completely satisfied with the massage had the masseur had not tried to pull the “five” into “fifty” trick there at the end. After soaking my feet he made a face at all of the dead skin on the soles of my feet when he began the massage. It is a fact that my feet are almost always rough, so I didn’t think I was getting played when he offered to shave off the dead skin for a price. I knew well enough to settle on a price before having a service rendered, and  after some gesturing and air-writing, he agreed with me when I asked him to confirm the price was five yuan. However, when I went downstairs to pay for my 60-yuan massage they told me it would be 110 because of the extra treatment. The skin shaving literally took an extra five minutes (which came out of my regular massage time) and in no way should have almost doubled the price of the massage. Everyone involved knew this, but I as I don’t speak Chinese, it was hard to make my point as adamantly as I would have in English. After some calculator negotiation, I ended up paying an extra 15 yuan. Really, two dollars isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things, and I would have been happy to pay $12 instead of $10 for the massage, I just didn’t like feeling like I was being taken advantage of. Alas…

Covering all the bases:
"Businessman's Budget Hotel... Backpackers Luxury Hotel"