Being a tourist is hard work!

Today was a LOOOONG day of sight seeing. We started by meeting in the lobby at 8:00 and didn't come back to the hotel until room until past 8:00.

We started the day by visiting the Summer Palace. This has been the summer residence of Chinese Emperors. As soon as we got off the bus we were attacked by street vendors. They formed receiving line and we had no choice by walking through it while the vendors tried to sell us "Rolecks" watches, post cards, books, toys...You name it they had it. And it was not enough to say no. You had to say no 100 times, to the same vendor. They followed you down the street and kept bringing their prices down thinking we were trying to hagle with them. There's no concept of personal space. They were glued to us until we got inside the Summer Palace.

The Summer palace was beautiful but very, very crowded. Maggie, our guide, tried to tell us the history of the place but it was so crowded with other tours that we could barely hear her. Nonethless we still got a chance to appreicate the beauty of it.

We left the Summer Palace and had quite a long walk to get back to our bus. Of course, we had another heard of vendors that attacked us. One vendor in particular was determined to sell John a "Rolecks" watch. He was stuck on John's left side and kept hassling him. I really thought John was going to loose it. He finally gave up.

Next stop was the Zoo. Well, kind of. We drove half an hour to the zoo, got off the bus, walked in the Panda's display, saw one panda in a distancde snoozing; another Panda eat some bambo with it's back to us and that was it...back on the bus.

Maggie took us to a Thai restaurant for lunch. Nothing great but at least we had a chance to sit down for an hour.

Next it was the Pearl Market near the Temple of Heaven. Unlike yesterday's pearl market this was government run, i.e. very expensive. We had a chance to see them dig salt water pearls out of a huge clam. They told us how to distinguish between a fake and a real pearl. Then the sale's pitch started. It was like being the live audience of a QVC show. It kind of went like this: "These are the best pearls in the whole world, you won't find beautiful pearls like this anywhere else and today just for my American friends we'll give you a discount of 20%. But only because I like Americans." He told us we could browse the store but there were dozens of sales girls that followed you around wanting to show you something. You could not get away from them, even if I wanted to buy something I was so overwealmed by them that I just decided to leave and wait for the rest of the group outside. John happily followed me. Out of our entire group of 16 only one person bought something.
Next, the Temple of Heaven. This is where the emperors went to pray to the gods. It was very beautiful. Chinese people gathered there to play cards, dance, sing, play instruments. It covered a very large area and just when we thought we were at the end of it there was another huge section to visit.
Of course when we left we were attached by the street vendors again. We were pros by now. Didn't make eye contact, kept walking straight ahead and put our arm out to make sure they didn't get too close.

By now we were all wiped out. It was about 4:00 and looking forward to go back to our hotels. That wasn't about to happen any time soon. We had yet another stop! The government run Silk Factory. We were irritated, tired, achy, sleepy, exhausted...you name it. The last thing any of us wanted to do was to stand through another QVC infomercial about the beauty and quality of the Chinese silk. They were trying to sell us silk bed quilts with silk duvet covers or as the presenters put it: "A doobie". We were so tired we got really giddy. He was showing us how the whole process of making silk works and it was very interesting but again we could have done without the sales pitch.
After his presentation we tried to leave and go back to the bus while the other people shopped/browsed the factory but a little girl came out of nowhere and pushed us on another section of the factory where they sold silk garmets. We were trapped! :)
We were able to sneak out shortly after that and go back to the bus right into the arms of more STREET VENDORS!
We finally made it back to the hotel, had something to eat in the restaurant and crashed around 9:00. John was up at 2:30 and woke me up. I tried to go back to sleep with no avail. I got up around 3:30 and decided to update the blog.

Here are some pictures of our very full day.

At the Temple of Heaven!

At the Summer Palace.

Temple of Heaven again!

Stretching silk at the Silk Factory!

Silk cocoons!