Beijing Hotels
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The Treasures of Beijing
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I'm at the Beijing airport right now waiting to get on a flight to Shanghai. Today is Wednesday.
On Monday, a tour guide took us to many places around Beijing. We had breakfast in the restaurant at the hotel, then met the tour guide in the lobby. Beibei, Jason, San, Sineerat, Jason's friend (with his sister and mother), Beverly (an American tourist), and I formed the group for the day. There were 9 of us, with Beverly the only one not knowing us all before.
We began by going to the Heavenly Temple. As we were walking in, a group of about 20 Chinese people ambushed Beverly and I wanting to have their picture taken with us. They didn't really give us a choice but just started taking them. I think I smiled for about 50 pictures before Jason dragged me out of the crowd. There were many parts to the temple. Most of it was outside and you walk around the many courtyards. There was one tall main temple that I think the emperor would go in to pray.
There was another area that was surrounded by a circular wall. It was called an echo wall because if you said something on one side near the wall, you could hear it on the other side of the area. We couldn't get it to work because there were so many people and restrictions of where you could stand. Another area had a stone in the center that if you talk when you stand on it, you will hear a loud echo of yourself. It worked for most people, but I didn't hear anything! There were many large gates to go through when entering each area. The doors in the gates had knobs on them made 9x9. Nine is a very important number for the emperor because it is the biggest number 1-9. It is seen as a powerful number and is used a lot for the emperor's things.
Facts about Heavenly Temple: 1) Circular Altar built in 1530 at south 2) Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest built in 1420, burned in 1889; now a new replica 125 ft high
From the temple, we left to go to Tian'anmen Square. There is a big pillar in the center. Other buildings surrounded it like a large museum and the Chinese "White House." No one really liked our tour guide. She wouldn't tell us much and didn't like questions, especially if she would have to criticize the government in any way. On the other side of the street from the Square was the Forbidden City, with Mao's famous large picture on the front.
We went into the Forbidden City and walked all the way to the other side. It was huge! No wonder it is called a city. There was building after building where the emperor lived or held meetings. The empress also had buildings and smaller buildings housed others but I don't know who. It was really pretty architecture but we couldn't go in most of it.
Facts about Tian'anmen Square: 1) Size of 90 football fields or 99 acres and standing room for 300,000 people 2) Forbidden City on north, Great Hall of the People on west, museums on east, Monument to the People's Heroes in center (124 ft high)
Forbidden City: 1) 7.75 million square feet 2)Sourcing of materials in 1406 and construction completed in 1420 3) Between 1420 and 1923 the palace was home to 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties 4) Tian'anmen gate is largest of Imperial City with Mao's picture. Left of it says "Long Live the People's Republic of China" and the right says "Long Live the Great Unity of the People of the World." Mao declared founding of People's Republic from there in 1949.
Our tour group then went to a restaurant in Beijing. I ate rice, lotus root, pork in some kind of wrap that felt like rubber, and veggies.
We then went to the Summer Palace. This is where the empress would go to cool off in the summer because it is next to a lake. This place was also huge. Most of it was courtyards that we walked through. There was also a lot of hand-painted corridors. The longest corridor in China was there.
Apparently the "Dragon Lady" became the empress one time and spent a lot of money. She made some changes to block some things off. She sounds mean!
Summer Palace: 1) Construction 1749-1764 2) Often associated with empress Cixi 3) 716 acres with Kunming Lake in south 4) Long Corridor is 700 meters (nearly half a mile) and has about 10,000 hand paintings on it
I forgot to say that after the Heavenly Temple, we stopped at the Pearl Palace. It was basically just a huge pearl store. In the front room they opened up a real oyster for us and showed us how the pearls are in there. There were about 20-30 in just the one oyster. We didn't stay very long.
After the Summer Palace, we went to a silk factory. They showed us the different stages of a silk worm's life and how they get the silk. They go through a process of soaking the cocoons in warm and cold water and stirring them. Then they find a piece of the silk that they can pull by a machine to unwrap the entire cocoon. If the worms are twins, the cocoon is taken off in a sheet and is used to stuff comforters. It takes thousands of cocoons to make any item.
We also went to a Chinese Tea place. They did a demonstration and had us taste 4 different teas. They even put roses in one. I bought a mug that changes color. It came with a "pee boy." It pees when hot water is poured over it. Don't ask...I have no idea why something so weird would be invented. There was also a bird that spoke Chinese there.
When we drove around the city, we passed by the Birds Nest, which is the main stadium for the Beijing Olympics next year. The swimming arena was next to it.
By the time we got back to the hotel, it was the evening so the 8 of us went to dinner. They had shishkabob type things that had a little too much seasoning, but not bad! They had 3 kinds: lamb, chicken, and beef. The beef one is the part of the cow that attaches the meat to the bone. It was chewy. I also had eggplant which I started to gag on. I tasted lamb leg/thigh and lettuce covered in soy sauce too.
After dinner, Beibei and I walked to a Seven-Eleven (yes, they have them in China!) to buy a little something for the next morning's breakfast. I saw a guy selling DVDs on the street next to a fruit stand so I got Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2, and 3. All of them for 15 yen. Pirated? Maybe.
Yesterday we met a different tour guide at 7:40 in the morning. He first took the 8 of us to a jade factory. We saw the workers at their machines cutting it. They also sold a lot there but it was really expensive.
After that, we went to the Great Wall which was an amazing experience! We could go to the left or right. One way was an easier walk. Beibei and I turned right to take the steep way up. It was a very hard hike up to where they had it stopped and blocked off. It was like climbing stairs for an hour. The stairs were uneven and some were probably one to two feet high. It was a lot of fun though and everywhere you stood there was a spectacular view...definitely my favorite part of China so far! As we hiked up we made little stops in the watchtowers. It was enough for a water break and a few pictures.
We were pretty much feeling like we had jello legs when we reached the top. I climbed the last watch tower at the end which had a very small and narrow stair case. We had to go down fairly quickly to meet the tour guide by 11:10. It was much easier coming down. The place was beautiful and I was surprised to hear that it was built several hundred years before Christ. To think that something like this was built before Christ was born is mind-blowing! 20% of the Chinese population at the time worked on it which was probably any able bodied male. Parts of it were constructed at different times and then one emperor or dynasty connected them all.
Great Wall Facts: 1) It is a myth that it can be seen from space and that it is a single continuous structure. 2) Origins in 453-221 BC 3) Many branches of it so length is difficult to determine; at least 6200 miles buy maybe 31000 miles
Random fact: 19 million people live in Beijing. There are about 20 million bikes and I forgot how many million cars.
I'll have to finish about Beijing later!
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