China

Many people have asked me how I found China and the trip on the whole. Think it wasn't as great as I had hoped, because of the following: 1. The tour guide, having a commission to earn, brought us to factory after factory - jade, silk, pearl, tea, TCM, etc. The itinery was extremely packed but as usual we were alloted more time at the factories than the attractions. Felt trapped. Frankly all these things can be found in Singapore, probably at just the same price. The group demography was such that there were three types of members: the too young to buy, the not-interested, and the done-that-bought-that. Thus, our group hardly bought anything and thus had a little "prep" talk from our guide about how she and the driver were not getting anything and she was afraid the driver wouldnt' be able to survive. Our group was indignant and replied that we were here to enjoy and see the attractions and not all were interested in buying. I'll try my best to avoid going on tour groups for the rest of my life. Felt I hardly learnt anything and once again being shepherded around. 2. Because of the 2008 Olympics, Bejing is sprucing up and many of the attractions are under renovations. Thus, some parts were closed off or sported unsightly construction. The best time to go would be in 2009 when toilet and attractions have been 'improved'. Also, as we were just in Korea, many of the ancient buildings in the palace and gardens looked like those we'd just seen in Seoul. I had this impression that the Forbidden City was incredibly large and spectacular but sad to say I wasn't impressed and the palaces in Seoul were prettier, quieter and more peaceful. 3. We went during the Golden Week so it was crowded, crowded, crowded!! Thankfully I wasn't jostled but there were people spitting left and right. Some of them youngsters too, which surprised us. We barely had any time to shop cos of the itinery of factories and activities. Also, we travelled 2.5 hrs to and 2.5hrs from Tianjin, a waste of time we felt, as we were only allowed one plus hour there to visit two streets with nothing much interesting. Thus, shopping was limited and the only shopping we did was when we missed one of the tour dinners to meet a friend. The bargaining was something! I thought I had a lesson in Turkey but this was Advanced Bargaining 101. You start at one tenth or two tenths of the price and go upwards. One lesson was never to buy anything without bargaining, even the smallest little object, unless you didn't mind paying the difference - which well, if the price was small might have only been one or two Sing dollars anyway - like 20RMB to 10 RMB would only have been $2 so spending 15 mins bargaining to halve the price may not have been worth it. We ended up only doing basically two sold hours of shopping with probably half of it spent in bargaining. We didn't have enough shopping!