Touristy Kind Of Day - Finally!

We fell asleep quite early last night after such a frustrating day, so were up bright and early this morning to hit the road. We headed to the Canadian Embassy once again to drop off the fruits of our labours from the day before - new passport photos, police report, confirmation of police report and then paid the $350 it cost for the temporary passport, the new passport, and the lost passport fee...I still have to get a new Chinese Visa once my temporary passport is ready, so another $100 I think. Thankfully I do have travel insurance and can claim it all back with only $100 deductable. Tried to call my insurance company but the phone number did not work...it figures...so I will email them tonight. 

From the Embassy we started walking towards the subway station to head to the Ming Dynasty Tombs. We stopped briefly at Starbucks at a nearby overpriced shopping centre and had some breakfast - Starbucks was overpriced as usual...then we bought our IC cards - like a myki card in Australia - bus pass you can load up for multiple use. We had spent enough on taxis getting all the passport stuff done. Public transit is actually pretty good, not nearly as crowded as we thought, thank goodness! From the train stop we then went in search of the right bus to take us where we needed to go. After several inquiries, we located the correct stop and before long the bus turned up aand we were on our way to finally see some sights! It was an hour long bus ride and we weren't sure if we would know when we got there as it was a city bus with several stops, but finally got to the main ticket gate, so jumped off, and went in search of tickets. Ticket buying was rather frustrating as they had some signs in English but no one spoke English or could understand their own menu of ticket choices in English when we called them out...then they were downright rude and laughed at us, the bitches....we managed to buy a ticket for the Underground Palace where an Emperor of the Ming Dynasty and his two Empresses were buried in tombs underground. It was like going into a time warp...we took 7 flights down and only 3 up, coming out at the same place...

The Underground Palace was not particularly spectacular, but intersting. There is money thrown all over each of the tombs, the stele's and the thrones of each of them. We chucked some in at one of them. The view from the Palace wall was stunning - mountains and fields of fruit trees. We bought a couple of HUGE peaches from the vendors and snacked on them in the woods sitting on marble stools shaped like elephants. They were so delicious! The vendors for figs were quite aggressive, thrusting them in our faces, but my girl and I are good at deflecting so it wasn't a big deal. Before we started exploring the grounds though, we went for some lunch at the one restaurant at the site. OMFG. No one spoke English and the menu was not in English so they pointed to pictures of animals to tell us what each dish was. I chose the pork and my daughter chose the chicken. We should have known better...the pork was mostly gristle, bone, and fat. It was kind of tasty so I choked it down. My daughter's was significantly worse...she ordered a chicken dish...what she wasn't prepared for was just what part of the chicken was being presented to her...first off, there was a chicken foot sticking out of the top of the stewed chicken...the pieces were similar to what I had at the airport - chicken pieces hacked up with a cleaver, bones, entrails and all...and had the texture of shoe leather. She tried to eat what she could because she was hungry but gave up in the end and had a little pork. The bigger shock was the bill. They charged us 197RMB which was absolutely ridiculous. The most we have paid for a meal so far was $78 and at least that was a good meal. The staff sat and watched us eat the whole entire time, laughing and making jokes behind our backs, staring at my daughter most of the time. We finally gave up and left without a word. I think they jacked the prices just for us...bastards. 

We still want to see Chang Ling Tombs so will have to cover that another day. It had started to rain again, so we just headed back into the city. Walking from the subway back to the Hutong Inn (which is on a hutong - narrow alleyways dating back several hundred years). We came across a Chinese McDonalds and decided to indulge in something that we were familiar with after the lunch fiasco. From there we bought more water and some beer and headed back to the hotel for the night. I went for a walk later on to buy some snacks and came across a hooka bar...didn't go in as I was alone and don't know the rules. I also came across a chicken tied up to a tree outside one of the tiny restaurants...she might be tomorrow's dinner...

So overall a pretty good day. My head still hurts as does my neck and it didn't help when I smacked it not once but twice on the bus rail bending over to reach for something...time for some Panadol and bed!