Day 4, the longest day...

Got up early as we had booked places on a tour of the Great Wall of China! Jack drew a diagram of the toilet to show the front desk. They found it pretty funny and promised it would be fixed when we got back.
Our tour group consisted of: Jack & Sarah, 4 Vietnamese guys (who got drunk), a Philippino lady and her Peruvian boyfriend, and a pretty bolshy family from Birmingham, whose daughter is going to Leeds next year to do English (small world!). The guide's English name was Wendy, and on the bus she kept telling us jokes and little facts about China. Due to the overcrowding of China, it is illegal to bury a dead body- everyone must be cremated (apart from Chairman Mao, who got hundreds of square feet of precious Chinese soil for his mausoleum). Wendy said if you want to be buried, you have to move to Canada where they have lots of space! That makes sense, considering how many Chinese we saw in Vancouver!

First stop was the Great Wall. It really was amazing to see, even if we were in quite a 'tourist-y' area. We had the choice of going the hard way or the easy way... we chose the "easy" way, which turned out to be hard enough! Hundreds of steep steps, but the view was amazing the entire way. It took us longer to get back down, because all the other tourists had arrived and all the mongolians and chinese wanted their photo taken with the white girl. Jack was given babies to hold for photos, and the people were all very friendly, except you could be minding your own business when suddenly you turn around and an entire asian family has arranged themselves around you, and theres already a camera waiting for you!

From there we were taken to a 'Jade gallery', to our surprise. We had a brief talk on how jade is sculpted, and from then on it was all just a hard sell. Luckily, we had no money on us, and we were allowed to leave!

Next we went to the Ming Tombs, which was actually a bit disappointing, as the traffic was so bad, our guide decided to take us to one of the tombs that hasn't been opened! We stroked a big turtle for luck, and walked through a tunnel called 'The Ghostway', because the thousands of slaves who built the tomb went in that way, but never came out again. They all had to take poison on the completion of the tomb, like the Egyptians did with the pyramids.

Then we had a really nice lunch at the 'Beijing Friendship Store', AKA ' Beijing Rip Off The Foreigner Store'. We had longer there than we did at the Great Wall, as next to the restaurant was a huge shop where if you looked at any object too long a shop assistant would appear and try to sell it to you. We were then taken to a tea-house (again, not on the itinerary), and were given lots of samples of tea to try. We both liked one called 'Oriental Beauty', which is a prize-winning tea. However, at the end of teh tea ceremony, none of us wanted to buy anything (as we'd been forced in there by Wendy), and the girl (who called herself 'Miss Tea') stormed out in a huff.

After that, we were taken next door to a massage and reflexology centre. We had a lecture on keeping fit and healthy and then a troupe of reflexology students came in and took control of our feet. During this, they tried to sell us lots of products, but apart from that it was a lovely massage. Jack couldn't walk afterwards though, as his masseur (a young goofy guy who had the giggles), had obviously hit the wrong nerve in Jack's foot. Sarah was fine :D
We also had a consultation with a Tibetan hand doctor, and 85 year old man who could look at your hands and tell you what's wrong with you. It was quite scary actually, he looked at Jack's hand for a couple of seconds and said 'You have asthma'. He got everything right, although he didn't pick up on Birmingham Lady's diabetes.

On the way back to the hostel, we went past the Olympic Stadium, which has been re-named 'the birds nest' by the locals. It is a big glass and chrome construction, with a roof the shape of... a birds nest! We had been told we could look around it, but the guide went back on her word again and all we got were a couple of photos as the bus went past.

Overall, though, day 4 was a really amazing experience.
And to finish it off, Jack's broken loo had been fixed. Hurrah!