The Great Wall of China is a motherfucker. It makes grown men cry.
This morning after a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant, we headed off to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs for a little touristy goodness. You can set up a tour through the hotel in Beijing and they’ll fix you up with a guide and a bus for an outrageous sum, but at least you won’t have to find your own way there and back. First we stopped at the Ming Tombs (pictures here) and then moved on to the Wall by way of a tourist trap jade factory. It was interesting, but clearly there’s a racket going on there—the guides must be paid to bring in tourists to the store where they can buy all sorts of cheap tchotchkes. The jade carvings were beautiful, if extremely overpriced for the market. I walked out with a couple of small things for family members and left it at that.
The Great Wall was incredible. As we started climbing, we noticed other people stopping and resting every couple of stairs. Pansies, eh? Right. I only made it up to the first turret up the hill, but that was quite far enough thank you. As I was climbing I passed a man sitting on the stairs crying with his friend consoling him. I’m right there with you, buddy. You don’t really think about it when you see it in pictures, but the stairs on the Wall are HUGE. Most of them on the steep uphill sections are as high as at least two normal stairs, and they’re uneven and pitted, so it takes constant foot readjustment and attention. Several of the really fit little girls in our group hauled ass up to the top of the mountain, and we watched, awestruck, from where we stopped.
Shel helped me down the stairs because my knees were knocking together from so much exertion—what a great guy. He’s one of the few guys on this tour that you can absolutely count on for a helping hand and not be suspicious of his ulterior motives 90% of the time. (He’s the stage manager I told you about who picked us up from the airport, and our bass trombonist. That being said, though, the other 10 percent of the time he can be skeevy.)
We ended up eating lunch at a little tourist trap on the way home—the tour guide, I suppose, gets kickbacks for bringing his fares to these places. It was all overpriced and cheap goods, with no bargaining allowed. That’s no good in China, eh?
Tonight we were back at the Great Hall of the People, and we took a little time to go outside to Tiananmen Square and take some pictures (see them here). It amazes me unceasingly that the Chinese people find us so interesting to look at: we went over to the square to take some pictures before the concert, and happened to walk up during a guard changing or flag lowering ceremony. There were lots of people there to see the ceremony, but as we walked up, little by little they turned from watching the uniformed soldiers in front of them to point and stare and take our pictures instead. Rock stars, all of us. (Especially me, who left my coat at the hotel like an idiot and turned into a popsicle before I got back to the hall. My shirt had an insane boobie quotient going for it. OY.)
Beijing is a study in contrasts—old junked out buildings next to new flashy construction. This includes the new Olympic stadium and complex, which is amazing (pictures). Dust and dirt covers everything, from the museum exhibits to the concert piano (a baby grand in a 9,000 seat hall? Give me a break. That’s bullshit.) It seems to be a part of the ambient attitude-- what's important to clean and what's not. A result of Communism? Who knows, could be.
The hall tonight was a horrific experience. During the first couple of numbers we started to smell a really pungent odor—some sort of solvent like acetone or paint thinner, and it only got worse throughout the concert. By the time we got to the encore I thought I was going to throw up on my shoes. I couldn’t be happier that we’re out of here after tonight. It’s been a trying experience. If it wasn’t for the Wall, today would have been a real trial.
