You may have heard the rumors by now and I must confess: Yes, I really did spend $144 on tea. I went into the place thinking I didn’t want any. By the time we left, we were convinced we needed to drink green tea everyday. And not just ordinary tea, either. Oh no, it has to be the emperor’s special tea, Grade A, just the tips of the first spring sprouts of a special tea bush.
Green Tea Face Mask – Dr. Tea told us what women use to firm and soften their faces. I’ve tried it twice and was amazed at how soft my face was afterwards. It’s not as messy as it sounds.Directions:
Leave the green tea leaves in the bottom of a cup when you’re done drinking the tea. Add one egg white, one teaspoon of milk, one teaspoon of honey. Apply to face and neck. Leave on for 20 minutes. Rinse off and moisturize.
Table Runner on the Bed – In the luxurious hotel they had laid a table runner across the foot of the bed. It dressed up the plain bed covers beautifully. So easy.
Thrift Store Clothes – one of our traveling companions, Tara, told me that she bought all the clothes for the trip at thrift stores. Then when she finished wearing them, she left them in the hotels. She assumes that they will be given to someone who needs them and she doesn’t feel bad about giving them up because she paid very little for them. That way she had more room in her suitcase for all the things she bought.
There is a 15 hour time difference between here and
Our tour bus did a 3-point U-turn in the middle of a busy 6 lane highway. Another time we did a U-turn in tandem with another bus.
People stared at us like we were the tourist attraction. Over there, people save their whole lives to go to
Margie ate grubs for breakfast!
Getting massages. For an hour and a half. In our room. For $25. They massage and stretch and poke hard over there. And pop your fingers. And put your feet in plastic bags of tea.
The tea plantations are laid out like vineyards. I was taking a picture of some workers, they saw me and called out, “Hello.” I answered back, “Ni Hou.” They thought that was hilarious and started giggling.
King Arthur, our tour guide said, “This is a paradise. There are no earthquakes, tornados, floods, or hurricanes. It is Shan-gorilla.” Which had me completely stumped until I saw the sign for The Shangri-la Inn.
At every stop, vendors run out saying, “Hello, hello, you buy? Only two dallah.” No matter what it is that they are selling: postcards, watches, silk bags, hats, you name it. You can always get it for 2-for-a-dollar, if you bargain. Our tour guide said, “Just wait, they suicide themselves,” meaning they will come down on their own.
Another tour guide told his group that the Emperor lived in the
Little kid butts hanging out. The toddlers have no bottoms in their pants. I understand that they don’t use diapers, but what exactly do they do? The kid can’t warn them when they need to go. Is it just a surprise every time?
Every KFC and Pizza Hut had long lines out the door. This is big stuff to them. Of course, if you ate Chinese food all day, everyday, it would be to you too.
Bob Bumps. Bob tripped the second day out. From that time on, we were always warning each other to watch out for the Bob Bumps. We even saw group of them, a real Bob Trap. I will use this phrase for the rest of my life.
Security at the airport made my mom take everything out of her carry-on. When they couldn’t find anything else, they took her toothbrush.
The eel that escaped its basket and slithered down the sidewalk with the owner trying to corral it again.
Apparently, red is for good luck and Georgie Too desperately wanted a pair of red panties. (What kind of luck was she hoping for?) So we went on a mission through the streets of
A lot happened in ten days.
Our tour guides gave us many glimpses into regular life for the people inside Because of the family plan, there are now 6 million more men than women in
The cities there are mind boggling big.
Speaking of driving, it’s something else! We were convinced that they simply do not have any traffic rules at all. Our tour guide was amazed at this. “Of course, we have rules. We know when we need to stop. We stop when we must stop.” Which basically means exactly three inches from hitting the nearest object, bus, car, or person. Apparently, they don’t do that too well either, there are over 600 accidents reported a day in
And over 200,000 deaths a year in the whole country. More than during the war.
Each driver gets 12 points at the beginning of the year. Every violation deducts points, if they lose all 12 they must go to driving school for three days, which they hate. Often if they are close to the end and have lost almost all their points, they just stop driving for the rest of the year.
If they don’t drive to work or school, they ride bikes or scooters. Millions of them. They can buy a used bike for $5. I watched every night on our way back and I never saw a light on one of them.
With so many people competing for jobs, they work very hard. No way do they want to lose their jobs. It would very difficult to find a new one. Schooling is critical and parents work hard to save to send their child to university to make their lives better.
Pollution in
This is something you will need to know if you ever go to
There is always someone who draws the ire of everyone else. In this case, it was Dave. He proved himself to be loud, obnoxious, and selfish very quickly, taking all of the beef out of the dishes before anyone else could get it and pushing his way to the front. When Margie’s beer was spilled he poured the remains of the last bottle into his own glass before they could refill hers. Brad almost decked him. At meal time, everyone would tussle to be at any table where he wasn’t sitting. Once when he was at our table, Brad leaned over to Leslie, at another table, to whisper, “You owe.” Leslie whispered back, “No way, we did our time at lunch.” Even my mom had to tell him to “settled down,” when he threw a tantrum like a five year old.
Touring is a very specific way of traveling. On the upside, everything is controlled. You never need to think about when or where you’re going, what you are eating, where you’re staying, or how to get there. It’s all taking care of. On the other hand, everything is controlled. You have no free time. Wake up call at 6AM; meet in the lobby at 7:30. You are going to see the factories and the gardens whether you want to or not. You are going to eat Chinese food again, whether you want to or not. You are going to wear a dork tag the whole time. There is no chance of going back to the hotel before 9 or 10PM.
Feeding large groups of people three meals a day is not easy. So we ate exclusively at large restaurants, exactly the same menu, with chopsticks, for lunch and dinner sixteen times in eight days. On the third day Julia said to me in her English accent, "It can't be time to eat again, we've had Chinese food at least fifteen times already." But it was. At a table for 10, they served two bottles of beer, a bottle of coke, and a pot of tea. If you want more, you pay. Starting out with a big bowl of rice, then an endless array of strange dishes, unlike anything you get in
We were incredibly lucky to get wonderful, knowledgeable, fun tour guides in both
Being in a foreign land where you cannot understand the language or read any signs can be disconcerting and isolating. You need the camaraderie and security of a group to understand and watch out for each other. We often repeated and confirmed instructions with everybody over and over, making sure everyone knew where to go and what to do. If you got lost, it would all be over.
Traveling in a group that way can be a blast; if you’re willing to be flexible, get along with others, and play by the rules. Otherwise, stay home.
Well, I really don’t know where to start. There were a million things to see. All the tourist attractions: Tian An Men Square, the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, the Great Wall, and the Grand Canal. We were treated to the best of everything. The hotels, buses, and tour guides were first rate.Since this is a Chamber of Commerce expedition, we toured to endless “factories”: pearl, jade, embroidery, silk, furniture, cloisonné, and rug. Also the Chinese Medicine Institute for herbs and a tea plantation. At each of these we were given a short demonstration of the skill and techniques involved in making these precious cultural treasures and then directed into a large showroom full of helpful salespeople to encourage us to buy, buy, buy.
Our last night in
In
Certainly the highlights for me were the trips to the “real”
We no longer find
