A few amusing stories from our day in Beijing.
After telling the hotel representative all we wanted to see and do in Beijing, and after she relayed all this to our driver, everything changed when we left the hotel. We did get to the Great Wall as scheduled, but then he started complaining that there was no possible way . . . with very little English. Jennifer, who was sitting in front seat, reminded him of our agreement. He called his dispatcher and complained, loudly. He handed cell phone to Jen with a look of triumph. Jen explained to both, in a very calm voice for Jen, that "no takee, no payee." They both understood, and the day progressed on schedule. Never let anyone tell you that you can't see Beijing in a day.
On the Great Wall, when Carol opted not to take the extremely steep climb to a sentry station, she had a funny, puzzling experience. Noticing a man taking a picture of his short, almost toothless wife, she offered to take a picture of the two of them. They became very flustered, and the man asked that he take a picture of Carol with the little wife. The little wife hugged her tightly around the waist, being very nervous and laughing a lot. Then the man started taking pictures of just Carol. When others saw this, they took pictures too. Don't know who they thought she was or might be, but it was like digital-camera paparazzi, disguised as Chinese peasants. One explanation might be that she was the only person on the wall with makeup and sunglasses. The whole no iron, no curling iron, no gridiron thing has been difficult for her.
Later within the Forbidden City, a very dumb young man tried to jerk away Anne's under-the-shirt money belt. Little did he know that she had wound it in and out of belt loops, so it was not going anywhere. She just looked and him and laughed, like "That should be forbidden here, of all places" - the second deflated male ego for the day.
Another thing, we heard, learned more than we needed to know about eunuchs and how they got that way, and there was no diverting Jimmy to another subject until he was done. Poor, poor eunuchs!
So early in the morning we fly to Lhasa, Tibet. Poor, poor Dali Lama!
