Day: 7 Date: Tuesday June 11th Status: Alive but grumpy Location: Beijing I shall title today as the Tourist Trap Day… and I saw it coming everytime but could not do anything but just let it happen… This might be long… Breakfast: due to the strange stomach cramps I thought it might be better to have classic food. Tourist trap #1. Hostel breakfast. Total rip off but I had decided to take the hit. Today Joao, Omri and I went to the Great Wall. To get there you first take a bus, then take a “mini bus” to the entrance, then pay your ticket and go to the wall. Everything was good til we got off the bus and had to take the minibus. 2 more people from the bus –who do not know how to barter- came with us. Tourist Trap #2: we were forced to overpay cuz they didn’t hold their ground. Joao and I were frustrated. Joao could have probably made it so that the pay us to go with them! Tourist Trap #3: Once at the ticket entrance we were forced to pay extra for a chairlift because we were told the last bus will leave before we would have time to go up and down. We didn’t spend enough time at the wall because we had to go back in time for the last bus. Turns out once we were back down, the “minibus” offered to take us to the subway instead to save us the wait in the traffic. He scared off some of the people with talks about traffic on the way back to Beijing and the possibility of being late for the last bus. We had a whole hour to a 20 minute ride… and the subway talk only happened now when we were back in the car. I thought it was a trick. He convinced the other people. Tourist trap #4: this ride to the subway would come for a hefty price, which most of the passengers we ok with (of course I wasn’t)… majority wins though. Once back in Beijing we went to look for Peking Duck. I was going to just take the hit and volunteer to the Tourist Trap #5: the duck. Turns out in Beijing, the Peking Duck only comes with ONE course!!! You get nothing more! And what they give you is less than a duck even though they pretend it is a full duck!!! And it is EXPENSIVE!!! Salt Lake has a much better Peking Duck. You get more and they make the duck better. This ones was soggy. And there you go: a collection of tourist traps. Only for two I was ok to take the hit. The rest I had to watch it happen and do nothing. The Great wall is cool because it is THE Great Wall but other than the fact that you are there (and yes it looks really cool as you can see it go on and on) the small pieces you get to walk on are alright. The biggest thing is just being there, which was tainted by the traps. I had expected to pay less than half of what I ended up spending. I hate being the typical tourist who pays without fighting back for a good deal. I hate it when people calmly agree to get taken advantage of! AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!! I would probably be less bothered if it wasn’t that to be able to afford china I had to be on a lentils, quinoa, bell pepper, pasta and rice diet for 10 months, and be on an ultra anti-expenses mode!!! See the money disappear in unnecessary expenses is soooooo paaaainfuuuul!!! Another thing, the damned driver –like most chinese males- cannot stop smoking. Don’t they have enough with the pollution??? How do they manage to live long with all of that???? Oh! And another thing: the weather forecast said it would be sunny!!! That is what we waited for this day! IT was a LIE!!! It was not sunny!!! It was stormy!!! It rained and there was thunder!!! Gray clouds covered the place and very inconvenient rain. The duck was also a major let down. Just keep going to your golden dragon or your red maple and be happy to know that it is better than some of the places in Beijing. I also tried this pastry thing that was VERY tasty. I will have another one before I leave ☺ Today I bought my ticket to Xi’an. Let’s try better luck there. I know I will take the hit for the Terracotta Warriors but that is it. End of Log.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 01:31:14 +0000