We started by talking a bit about Beijing's history as the main capital of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and about Emperor Yong Le, the 1st Ming emperor, who built up the foundations of modern Beijing. Our first stop of the day is actually to his tomb, in the outskirts of the city for better feng shui (mountain to the north, water to the south, hills on the east and west). Yong Le's is the largest of the 13 Ming tombs in the area, and his exact burial location is unknown - the "tomb" that we see is actually a gigantic grassy mound acres in area. To date, only one Ming tomb has been unearthed, and that was by accident. Someone once asked me if they thought the Chinese government would find it worthwhile to try and find the treasures within these tombs, but honestly, I think it's probably more worth it to them to keep it as a tourist attraction with its uninterrupted natural beauty. The site is very nice to gaze upon, and the architecture is slightly different than the other historical sites scattered around Beijing. For instance, the cedar pillars in the temples are singular trunks from trees hundreds of years old, and are kept in their natural color to highlight their size (other pillars in Beijing are painted red to hide the joints used to join many different trunks). We also learned that no wives of the emperor were allowed to stay in the Forbidden City past his death except for the Dowager Empress. Thus, it was either be buried with the emperor or a life in the nunnery. I know which one I would have chosen...
We made some quick stops to the National Jade Gallery, the Cloissone/Ming Vase Factory, and to the Chinese Herbal Institute afterward. Nothing particularly memorable, except for the apathy and erroneous predictions of the herbalist "doctor." Me have GI problems and menstrual cramps? I'm sorry, you must be thinking of the OTHER generic female. Don't get me wrong: I've seen some amazing traditional Chinese medicine doctors. But this was not one of them, and speaks to the poor regulation and improvement of the practice in China.
Then it was off to the holy mecca of tourism in China, the Great Wall. The section of wall we used wasn't particularly big and we only had 1.5 hours to scale our stretch and come back, but it was still a good view and more than enough to make us huff and puff. We passed 6 turrets in all, where soldiers used to create smoke to warn of invaders: 1 signal = 500 invaders, 2 signals = 1,000, and more than that = TROUBLE. Unfortunately, my camera died during this part of our trip so all the photos were by Lydia and Dorelan. Beijing wasn't quite into Spring yet so the Great Wall landscape was not nearly as verdant as I remembered, but the wonder of the human achievement remains. I would love to come back one day and hike the Wall for real.
We were pretty tired by the time we got back from our tour, but we had made plans to go to Club Banana and were not going to back down! It was well worth it - the crush of Asians awkwardly bobbing about, the loud crunk music with the incredulously lewd lyrics, the foam-rubber floor that shifted around, and zero cover for ladies.... AWESOME. I sweated, Dorelan got propositioned by all the Chinese men who could dance, and Lydia drew attention with her red hair. It was a hell of a way to end a day :-)
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