Beijing (Part 3)

   Another bit of a drive brought us to the Great Wall.  I asked to bring my wheelchair, but the guide said that it wasn't accessible.  Sad face. I asked how far it was and she said it was just a little, easy walk.  No big deal.

   In reality, it was 20 minutes of this:

haha  Oh well, I did ok as long as I went slow and took breaks.  So no harm done and I got some exercise.

At this point on the trip, I had been adopted by a couple of life long learners and they bought me a panda hat since I didn't have a chance to get money at the hotel the night before.  I flipping love that panda hat!  I don't care how ridiculous I look, I am going to wear it even in the middle of a California summer when I get home!  

ridiculous

I made it to the top of the hill and took a gondola the rest of the way up to the wall.  It was a very scenic trip.  I didn't have my usual mini-panic attack that usually accompanies use of ski lifts or gondolas.  

The ride was really pleasant and scenic.

Then I was on the Great Wall of China!  A place I had seen in pictures and film since before I can coherently remember and I was standing on it!  There was much rejoicing and picture taking.

It was even more beautiful and more amazing than I could have imagined.  Plus, I was able to do the hiking and climbing required to get around!

On the way down, I had fun taking my time and looking at the booths selling really nice souvenirs.  The vendors were super pushing, going as far as grabbing us, but I didn't really mind.  I just would say I had no money (which was true) and move on.  Part way down I ended up finding a stray $5 and was able to get a beautiful embroidered picture with it.  At the very end of the way down, I found an additional $3 and this guy was SO nice in giving me a piece of marble with my name carved in it for that price.  He knew I really didn't have any more money and I really wanted the stamp.  Very nice guy.

Some people commented on my stroke walk (I actually look like I had a stroke when I walk downhill.  Those leg muscles never quite recovered from the stroke.) but I didn't get as many stares or comments as I expected.  

There were some strange and interesting things in the market lining the path back from the Great Wall.  I saw this and gave up trying to decide what was going on there.  

And naturally, there were camels.  Why wouldn't there be camels right?

On the way back, we were running early so we got to stop at a tea house.  We participated in a tea tasting demonstration which was really fun.  I never knew that making and drinking tea was such an art!  I liked most of the teas I tried, especially the fruit tea!  I spent an embarrassing amount of money on the tea and had fun taking pictures of the decorations.  

Dinner was at one of the most popular restaurants in the city.  It specialized in duck which was something I had never tried before.  After I heard how the poor duckies were raised, I almost didn't want to try them ever.  ( I did try the duck and it was delicious.  I justified it with the fact that the duck was already dead and I didn't want it to go to waste.  Weak, I know.)  The ducks are raised in increments of 15 days.  They start out free ranging on the river banks for 15 days to build up their muscle.  Then they are packed into a small pen and overfed.  The overfeeding and the inability to move make them gain a bunch of fat.  Then they free range again, and then they get put back in a pen but the floor of that pen is on a hot plate.  This is where it get's REALLY sad.  The hot plate is so hot that it burns the duck's feet so they jump and hop to try to not have their feet burn.  They are forced to do this for days and days until their meat is deemed perfect and they are killed for food.  So sad!

Beijing (Part 2)

  After a bit of a drive, we arrived at a restaurant for lunch.  The food was ok, but it was still exciting to be eating my first official Chinese meal.

(We are bundled up because most restaurants, including this one, are not heated.

Right across the parking lot, we toured a Cloisonné factory.  I'll let the sign tell you what that is...

It was really interesting to see how these pieces were made.  The first step was to make the underlying structure for the vase, plate, or whatever else the piece would become. 

 The structures were made of coper and intricate designs were soldered on to the surface.

Then, artist would fill in the different sections with brightly colored pigment.  The recipe for the pigment is a safely guarded secret.  Similar types of pieces can be found all over the world, but all those pigments will fade over time.  Only the pieces from the factory will last for hundreds of years.  (Or so I was told.)

The glazed pieces were sprinkled with ash and then fired to set the colors.

The final step was to sand and polish the fired piece.  

After the tour we had some time to browse through the shop and explore the area.  I spent most of the time exploring the area because well, there were puppies.

So much for not petting the animals...

And also:  Rawr!

Vietnam (Day 3)

   I don't know how I managed, but I signed up for pretty much the same service visit two days in a row.  I was a little disappointed at first, but then I realized how excited I was to go back to the School for the Deaf and see all the kiddies again.  :0)

   It was just as fun as I thought it would be.  The kids remembered me and were very excited that I came back.  I couldn't participate in the first activity that the kids and SASers did (standing and running) so I drew pictures of the kids with the animals from the zoo from yesterday.  They thought it was really cool and drew some pictures of the zoo animals for me too.  :0)  

    Once again, the picture book was a fantastic thing to have.  The kids loved going through it and showing me the signs for the pictures.  We had the added component of me acting out the some of the pictures.  They were very interested in the medical pictures so I showed them where all the things were in the body and where the braces went.  It felt very cool because I could see that I was teaching them things.  They would excitedly show one of their teachers the new things they were learning by explaining them in sign.  We didn't even come close to speaking the same language but I was still able to use my limited knowledge of the world to show them something new.  It made me start wondering if I may want to be a teacher.     I also learned some new things myself.  Lots of new signs and how to write the names of things in Vietnamese.  

   I still probably wouldn't consider this a good example of service learning.  I remember when tourist used to come to my elementary school and we always thought of it as us doing service to them for allowing them to come and showing them our school.  I imagine that is what the kids here think of all of us coming as well.  It doesn't really matter whether it was service or not though.  I had so much fun, and so did the kiddies.  :0)

   I hung out a lot with my little buddy from the day before.  He was just as rambunctious as ever!  He was the kid in class running around while everyone was coloring and poking people or stealing their crayons.  :0)  

I think he met his match in this little one.  haha

I REALLY didn't want to leave now that I had spend so much time over two days here.  The kids kept sneaking downstairs to wave goodbye and give me a last hug as I was waiting for the bus.  :0)

Our next stop was quite a bit more sobering.  We went to an orphanage for kids with disabilities.  Once again, my views on the trip differed from most people.  They were sad because the kids were disabled.  I was sad because they were abandoned by their families and there weren't the resources to help them meet their potential.  There were kids laying in beds all day and I could just see it in their eyes that they could think far more than their bodies would let them act.  It breaks my heart that at home, these kids would have an electric wheelchair and assistive communication device and could do almost anything any other could have.  Here they had to lay in bed all day in a room with forty other kids and only two or three staff members.  That is to say nothing negative about the facility.  THey were actually doing a wonderful job for what resources they had.  The place had an excellent playground, decent medical facilities, and some trade classes for the older kids.  There was a much better staff or kid ratio than in some other places and the staff was all very caring and attentive.  There was a therapy room which I snuck into while my group went up stairs so see some more rooms.  It was really interesting to see a therapy session.  I talked with the women working there and between the four of us we communicated that I was a therapy student.  THey were really excited that I was going into that area.  I was worried that I was getting distracting so I excused myself and headed out to the courtyard.  I have to say I was a concerned at what I saw of the therapy session.  There were three kids to one therapist and they weren't really interacting.  The therapist was sitting there putting a puzzle together and the kids were looking around the room.  The therapist didn't really do anything to engage them even though I could tell they were definitely capable.  It added to my feelings of frustration that these kids would never be able to reach their potential.  

On a brighter note, some of the kids were only at the orphanage for day care.  They got to go home with their families at the end of the day.  I was so happy that so many of the kids actually weren't abandoned and and had homes to go to every night.  It was nice to see that there were resources for families with kids with disabilities because this is often not the case.  

I rejoined my group and we handed out some toys and played with some of the kids for a while which was really fun.  Then it was time to go and a short bus ride back took us back to the ship.