New Day New guide - Grace is back!!!

A new day and a new guide. Today Grace returned, quite confused about Jerry's claims of her lack of knowledge and an official certification. The Mao bag carried by the wannabe communist is replaced by a floppy pink hat, endless giggling and unabashed capitalist instincts (no need to cover that in this blog).
We first visited Tianamen Square and most in the group are struck to visit the site of the tragedy of government excess and the display of superhuman courage by a scrawny student who stood up to a tank. However, that memory appears far removed from the throngs of people laughing, chatting, sightseeing and taking pictures of their children under the not-so-threatening watch of local police and government soldiers. Grace is informative but not overbearing. Mao's portrait hangs over the square and Grace advises us that the people love him greatly and that he did many good things for China.
We move on to the Forbidden City - which housed 40,000 people during the times of the emperors. Jerry had asked the group to ask Grace how many rooms there are in the Forbidden City - assuring us that she would not know there are 9,999.5. Grace laughed at our question and its preface - the city has about 9,000 rooms, but everyone claims that there are 9,999.5 because the heavens supposedly had 10,000 and the emperors claimed to be just less than immortals. So much for certifications. Grace claims not to know anyone else besides Jerry who brags about being certified.
We go to lunch over a government-run pottery factory. The young girl describes how the bowls are made in the same feverish staccato that the woman in the government-run pearl factory used the day before. they were apparently trained by the same person. the food is of course excellent and everyone buys some trinkets after lunch - all of which are of the "highest quality" as assured by the store "credit card" handed to us when we walked in.
We move on to the Great Wall - a prospect noone is much interested in as it is almost 2:30. However, that feeling immediately evaporates when we get there. Shrouded in mist and mountains, the Great Wall is, well... pretty darn Great. We climb some of the wall and then turn back because the mist augurs rain and the steps are slippery. we do go high enough to get "certified" that we climbed the wall ( china is obsessed with certifications) but opt out another thing to hang on the wall - seeing as the seven-year-old girl in our group got just as high as we did.
we return to the hotel as we pass the olympic village and cheat death multiple times in the Bejing traffic (ok i am exaggerating but these people drive like maniacs). Tomorrow we move on for the really important part - getting Claudia.