Places to see near Beijing or Shanghai

[Yuanyang]

In case I missed someone else mentioning it: The Summer Palace is nice. You can see the marble ship and the largest corridor in the world. It's all beautiful and can consume a day.

 

The tour we took to The Great Wall also included a stop at the state run Jade factory. Beautiful, huge pieces of jade. Lots of other things that are affordable. I bought a 'family ball' ( a ball in a ball in a ball in a ball) which is made from 1 piece. You can see the workers making the pieces.

 

Also it stopped at a vase factory and then a traditional medicine school (where you WILL be diagnosed as needing some medicine).

[papa bear]

Went to fragrant hill yesterday. it was nice the architecture is the same as all the other ancient sites, one terracotta roof is the same as the next.

My favorite part was climbing the wall and riding the horses back down, then walking through the small village just before the bottom.

I highly recommend it unless u have a bad heart and are scared of heights, there are a few spots where there are only inches between the horses hoofs and a couple thousand foot tumble.

But not to worry you don't pay untill they get you to the bottom so if you accidently take the fast route I think it's free.