Beijing Hotels
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Sunday
Entry 12 of 20 | show all | print this entry |
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Today we had another early start. We gathered at 8am in the lobby to meet out tour guide for the day. Today was our first day of "sight-seeing". Our guide was named Shirley, and she was going to take us to the Summer Palace, on a Hutong tour and to see an acrobatics show. We had our own mini bus. Our first stop was the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace is the place here the Emperor's dowager lived in summer(appropriately enough. She built the palace during the period of time when she had more power than the Emperor. It is beautiful. Every courtyard that you go to is more beautiful than the last. A huge lake was the main feature in the gardens. There was a long corridor, which is the longest and most beautiful in all of Beijing and possibly China. From east to west it was over 700metres long. The whole corridor only used 12 nails, but it was a secret as to where they were used. Every post in the corridor had a new painting. The paintings were precise and intricate. It's amazing how detailed they were for their size. We spent a long time in the Summer Palace, with us becoming as big of an attraction as the sights for some tour groups. They lined up to have pictures with us, and even I was wanted for many, many photos which was surprising as I am no longer small and blonde. We played with a ball and racket in a special way, as we saw some locals doing. A lady taught us how to do it properly, and soon, we were surrounded.
From the Summer Palace, we moved on to the Hutong tour. The Hutongs are the last remaining homes of old Beijing. They are little, old houses with people still living in them. We saw a man suspended from the electrical wire that we was fixing. Imagine the Workplace Health & Safety for that in Oz! We took rickshaws from place to place, which was so much fun. It was so bumpy and it was fun to wave to everyone. Our first stop was the drum tower. It was a long tower. We had to walk up 69 steep, steep stairs. We were all puffing once we reached the top. We admired the view from the balcony, and then looked at the drums. the drums were all replicas, which was a shame.
We took the rickshaws to where Puyi, the last Emperor lived after he was dethroned. The gardens were pretty, but they weren't big, so we didn't stay for too long. Our last stop was to a little family to help us make dumplings. We were asked to show our appreciation for our rcikshaw drivers, so we all clapped and applauded. Then, we realised that that meant tipping. Their faces as we were clapping were full of annoyance and bewilderment. We were really embarrassed when we worked it all out and struggled to find change to tip them. Later we saw the funny side. This was a real family who lived in the Hutongs. We went to their tiny, tiny two room house to make the food. It was surprising; they had a computer, fridge, etc, but no bathroom (everyone here uses the public facilities instead) and the room where we were eating was also their bedroom. We were sitting on a table, but that table was usually moved to the kitchen, and they would sleep on a couch that was outside. We made the dumplings really badly, but it was fun to do it. We made fun of dad's, which looked like heads. We sat around while we waited for the dumlings to cook. The dumplings arrived in a really short time, but tasted really nice.
We were hungry, and ate all of them. It was 2pm and the acrobatics show didn't start until 5:30, so we had some time to kill. We said that we would go to the Pearl Market (a 6 story 'Dandenong' market), and Shirley took that literally, and took us to a pearl wholesaler. Here they specialise in pearls. This was a boutique shop, and the prices were high. After 20 mins of wandering around this expensive shop Dad gave more detail we were taken to the market we had in mind. Once we got there, we realised that we were missing something...Hayley! We had left her at the pearl shop. In a frenzy, mum and Shirley raced back to the other shop, to Hayley who hadn't even realised that we had left fifteen minutes ago. She wasn't stressed, or upset and was sensible. Oh, did mum and dad count children countless times after that! We spent about 45 mins at the market, but it wasn't that good, so we boarded the bus early. We went to our last part of the day, the acrobatics show. expecting a circus-esque performance, we were surpised when we saw it was about a little Buddhist monk, finding enlightenment through Kungfu. The tricks that they did do were breathtaking, but we could've done without the story. It was disappointing. We drove abck to the hotel and thanked Shirley for a good day. We went back up to our rooms, where we waited until we were allowed in the boys room. We did and Easter egg hunt! We searched round the boys' room until we filled a bucket. We ate our eggs, when we got the idea to take the cover off the fan and throw our hollow eggs there and see how it spits it out. It spat the eggs out pretty hard, and we laughed as they hit unexpecting people. It didn't really ruin the eggs, though, so we still ate them. We watched Music and Lyrics before bed. Happy Easter, everyone!
Latest Comments (2)
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Happy Easter to all (reply)
Mar 24, 2008 21:06 EST by robynne
We had the usual Easter Sunday where we went to church but we did get to see Nick and Leanne's new bub Noah. We all took turns nursing him and having a lovely time.
In the afternoon kelsy and mum went over to Aunty cath's so Madeline and kelsey could do so scapbooking. They both finished 1 page - it is such a slow craft but the girls had a ball.
You are all certainly cramming a... show all
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Happy easter to u 2 (reply)
Mar 23, 2008 23:32 EST by peter3
Thanks amy for all the up dates,probably not as good as being there , but very enjoyable to read.
Say hi to all from me.
Peter
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