TIANANENMEN SQUARE and THE FORBIDDEN CITY
We started the day at 8:30 and headed over to Tiananmen Square. We knew it was a large area but the enormity of it was impressive. Wendy told us that it could hold as many as 1.2 million people. She also told us that the trip to Tianenmen square is, for many Chinese, a place they feel they must go at some point in their lives and there are as many people traveling there from within china as there are foreign tourists. Right next to Tianemen square is the Forbidden City. We took about an hour to walk through the residence of the last Emperor. The forbidden city is 1 square kilometer and separated roughly into four sections. The first area is where the guards stay, protecting the palace. The next area is where the politics happen, behind that is the residences and sleeping quarters and behind that are the gardens. The emperor could, obviously, visit all the areas but mostly they were separated by gender. The first two being only men and the second two being only women. Aside from the Emperess there were around 3000 concubines living in the palace.
Some of the more interesting stories we were told about the Forbidden City and it’s inhabitats. The emperor chose many of his concubines from the daughters of his ministers. Many of them would only see the emperor one time-the time they were chosen to be concubines. The life of a concubine was often fraught with danger as there were many schemes and plans to get close to the emperor. The concubines often lived in the midst of murder plots, conspiracy, and distrust. When an emperor finally died the concubines were all sent to become Nuns. As they had belonged to the Emporer they could no longer belong to anyone else.
TEA STORE
After the forbidden city we were taken to another live infomercial but this one was participatory and tasty. A tea store! We sat in a little room with a pretty table and a pretty woman and she told us all about different teas and what they are good for and how to drink them and what temperature you should have them at. It was so captivating that I was convinced and bought tea! We bought the pretty one that is a roll of three dried flowers and it opens up to beautiful in water! Oh. And they gave us a little ceramic boy that you pour water on and he pees if the water is hot enough.
LUNCH
Lunch was a buffet. The food was fine-nothing spectacular or crazy. We ate a lot.
TEMPLE OF HEAVEN
We spent all of 20 minutes here but the time we spent was lovely. There’s a massive temple in the middle (a temple to heaven) and the building is so important to Beijing that it’s the symbol of the city. It’s a three storied circular building painted mostly blues and whites. Beijingers believed that heaven is a circle (hence the circular shape) and that it covers the earth (a aquare). The park is supposedly huge, but-well-we can’t speak to that.
SILK STORE
After the temple of heaven we went to a silk store. This was riveting! I had no idea how silk was made! So, there are two kinds of silk worm cocoons. One kind it used for silk tread and the other for silk stuffing. It looks like (and is used for) comforter batting. So, the silk thread is taken from the cocoons. Literally the pull a strand of the cocoon off and then just keep pulling to make a thread. The thread from one cocoon can be 650 meters. WOW! But it is so thin that the combine the threads of about 6 or 7 cocoons to make a thicker strand.
The other cocoon is used for silk batting. They wet the cocoon and then just pull it apart! That’s it. The stretch it into a thin cloth and put it over a wicker frame (shaped like an inverted U.) the do that with 10 cocoons because it’s so thin and then take that and put it on a larger frame and put 10 more to make a thick batting. Once they have that done, you take it over to a big bed frame. Four people stand around the frame and they put the silk batting in the middle and the women then pull it to stretch it out to the size of the quilt. WOW! Just wow. While I was sufficiently impressed, I still didn’t buy any silk.
OLYMPIC PARK
The silk store was our last organized stop for our tour so our driver dropped us off at Olympic Park for us to wander around. It was lovely! The olympic area in beijing. There's the places everyone know and reconginzes like the Nest and the Watercube, but the whole area extends way past that. Behind (or infront of depending on your direction) is the Olympic Green which is this lovely walkway along a maintained river and then farther on is The Olympic Forest. We almost didn't make it to the forest. I'm glad we perservered through the hardships of the green. what hardships you ask? Well, although Olympic Green is beautiful apparently China and Korea have the same habit of broadcasting pop music thourgh speakers in beautiful settings. Although unlike Korea this particular park only had 3 (THREE) songs that it played on repeat. Anyway, we beat a hard and steady path through the Green to Olympic Forest.
Once in the Forest our day took a turn for AWESOME when we rented Minature electric cars and cruised through park. Amazing. It was so fun. I'm glad we overcame the fear that we felt upon standing in line for the cars. We were so worried (unnecessarily) about how to get one. Oddly, even though the olympics were only two years ago there is almost no English in the Olympic area. Of course, there were almost no obvious foreigners. We saw only one obvious foreigner and he was with his family who all seemed to be Chinese so that doesn't really count. ANYWAY, becuase of that many people found us Hilarious (as we found ourselves) and we many people enjoyed watching us as we PutPutted around the park in our tiny green car.
Hutong city
When we left Olympic Park/Green/Forest we hopped a cab over to Hutong, Old Beijing. Our tour guide recommended the lake front area as a place to go for an evening and oh did it turn out to be fun. It's like any bar scene in any country-you know, except for being in China-with lots of overpriced bars and tons of people wandering around and a variety of smells wafting around every corner.
Our first bar was a rooftop scene-great view of the lake and people and awesome view of the Motorcycle gang that cruised through the area about halfway through our dinner.
Jamie wants you to look at this photo and say:
Who has one thumb and drinks more beer? THIS guy
Our second bar was a hooka bar on street level. This was lovely and pleasant and turned awesome when the people next to us started taking our picture. THEN the guy came and sat next to us to take a picture. THEN he gave us cigarettes. THEN he went and got cold roast beef to share with us. Awesome. It was super fun. Actually, many people were taking our picture while we were sitting there. I hope my hair was OK.
Anyway, we wandered home early. Well, it would have been earlier if we didn't keep getting lost in the tiny little back streets of Hutong but by the time we got back we were wiped from our day of sightseeing and excitement.
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