BEIJING TOUR 12 - 19 OCTOBER 2007

It had been my childhood dream to visit Beijing since I learned about Great Wall of China when I was in primary school, way back in the 50s. I wanted to climb the Great Wall of China long ago and, thank God, I had finally made it, together with my wife, during our recent Beijing tour from 12 – 19 October 2007. The Beijing Chinese put it this way, “You are not a (good) guy if you don’t climb the Great Wall of China.” We felt so great about it that we wish to share our photos with our children, relatives and friends.

We also visited other tourist spots in Beijing such as the well-known Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City (Imperial Palace), the Ming Tombs, Yiheyuen (Summer Palace) and Daguanyuan (Grand View Park). In Chengde, we visited the Imperial Summer Resort and Little Potala Palace.

The trouble with joining a tour was that our time was totally controlled by the local Chinese tour guard though we could visit many palaces as arranged in the tour itinerary and at the convenience of traveling in a comfortable coach. He was well versed in China history and whenever he stopped, it was good listening to him as he briefed us the related historical events. However, he had skipped the Mao Zedong Memorial Hall where the preserved body of the late Chairman was displaced for tourists to have a quick look. It was certainly regretful for many of us in the tour group because his excuse was merely of not having sufficient time for us as we need to queue up for hours to get inside the Memorial Hall. On the other hand, many of our time were wasted by taking us to places where we were expected to buy jades, silks, Chinese medicines, Chinese teas etc. Mind you, the pricing was not cheap though the buyers could get some satisfaction out of it on bargaining. Many of us ended up buying costly Chinese medicines after a free lecture on health and free diagnosis by the so-called highly qualified sinsehs in Tongrentang, a famous China traditional medicine shop with a 100 year history.

Besides climbing the Great Wall of China, there was a lot of walking when we visited the about tourist attractions. A free foot reflexology section had been arranged on the 4th night after dinner to release our pain and aching on our legs due to too much of walking but we were asked to tip them. That’s fine but some of our tour members ended up buying Chinese medicines again!

We were also disappointed at Shimao Tianjie known as Beijing Xin Tian Di where we were supposed to enjoy our shopping spree and keep our heads up to watch the 4D undersea movie shown on the long screen under the roof. Instead, we were given 5 minutes to take some photos just to show that we had been there. There was no such show on the roof screen as we arrived there at the wrong timing!

Nevertheless, we did enjoy the grand Ice Skiing and Colourful Dancing Show after the wonderful spa at Beijing Tianlongyuan Hot Spring. The Old Peking acrobatic show brought us back to the memory lane. They used to performance on the streets during the good old days in Peking and we had watched them many times in Kong Fu movies. The evening cultural show Golden Mask Dynasty was very grand after we had spent the whole afternoon in the Happy Valley Theme Park. Well, only the children in our tour group were having happy hours in the 6 theme zones.

The slogan of “One World One Dream” was everywhere. It’s all about Beijing Olympic Games to be held on 8.8.2008. However, our coach just stopped by the roadside for us to take photos of the still under construction “Bird’s Nest” Main Stadium for Beijing Olympic 2008. We also came across many authorized shops selling Beijing Olympic 2008 souvenir when we were brought to shopping malls to purchase other Made in China products and gifts for friends and relatives.

If you plan to visit Beijing in August 2008 coincide with the Summer Olympic, you may have to pay much more than what we had paid for joining the tour, hotels and foods. But if you can afford, why not? It’s once in a lifetime opportunity, right?

I and my wife are planning to visit other places in China, may be Shanghai or Jiucaigoa. We hope our children can join us in 2008. But we will keep reminding ourselves, “We'll go there as tourists, not as sick patients. So there will be no more free diagnosis by sinsehs and no more buying Chinese medicines.”