Wow. We are in CHINA! I have to pinch myself every so often just to convince myself that this real. We started this day by waking up at about 3:30am...at 4:30am I just asked who was awake. We all were. So we got up, took showers and just chatted for a while before breakfast. We have a breakfast buffet as part of our hotel and it was awesome. They had a combination of American, British and Chinese foods...including different dumplings and buns, some white fruit that has what looks to be black poppy seeds in it and all kinds of pancakes, cereals, pastries. It was a great start to the day. Jeff wore his Auburn shirt (of course – if you know Jeff you could have guessed this). Amazingly, we were leaving breakfast and heard a “War Eagle”...we met a man who had graduated from Auburn in the 1950's. He was so nice and we got to share our Lily story. I just love to talk about my baby girl.
After breakfast, we still had some time before meeting our tour guide (8am) so we went for a walk down the street by our hotel. It's just amazing to see the Chinese characters on all the buildings and signs and to just realize we are in this country that I have been dreaming about for over 5 years. It is beautiful here...warm, about in the low 80's and very windy although it started out a little cool in the morning. My pictures tell that story with my hair all over the place.
We met Louise, Karen, Tony and Kathleen (Karen's mom) at 8am to take off for our tour. We went for about an hour and a half drive to the Great Wall (with a little stop at a Jade Market) and parked at the entrance for the Ju Yong Pass. Supposedly it is one of the hardest parts of the wall to walk since it is mostly steps...all of which are different heights and worn. We saw it and instantly considered it a personal challenge. Before we could start the climb, we stopped at the area of the locks. Louise told us the story (which we had seen on The Amazing Race years ago) that a couple puts a lock on the chain on this part of the wall and throws the key over, signifying that there is nothing that can break them. We had brought a lock from home, although there are tons of people that buy them there and have them engraved with their names. Dad also brought one. We ceremoniously put them on the chain and threw our keys over. It was neat.
Then we started the climb. OMG. We were trying to get to the top of the pass and we kept going and going and going. We lost Jeff about half way up but Dad and I kept trudging. Jeff has a fear of heights...my poor baby. We kept going and going. Just when we would reach a landing thinking it was the highest part, we would look up and see another set of winding steps. So we kept going and going, my legs were shaking and I was sweating. Dad was hard core, always ahead of me. We finally got to a point where we were way past the time that we were supposed to meet our group, we were gave out and there was still another snaking part of the wall ahead, so we cut our losses and turned back. It took us almost 40 minutes just to climb down and by the end my legs were visibly quivering. But I felt good. :) Jeff and I got an ice cream (no points counting here) and we met our group.
From there we went to our Chinese luncheon which was as awesome as breakfast. It was served family style with all the food on a lazy susan in the middle of the table. We had sweet n' sour chicken, breaded chicken, some sweet-ish egg rolls, beef, fish balls, vegetables, a plate of celery (YUCK), noodles, jasmine tea and soup. There was also some Chinese wine that was 56% alcohol...it tasted like rubbing alcohol and provoked some crazy faces. Dad had a little tiny beer with his food. Everything tasted so yummy. I have heard that real Chinese food is not like we get in the US but this was really great.
We then took a little tour of a cloisonne factory and did some small shopping. I haven't bought anything yet...waiting for Lily to get here first. After that, we took another long bus ride to the Temple of Heaven. Traffic is horrible in Beijing. Of course, Louise is well versed in all things Beijing and has told us that there are 16 million people in this city alone. I think that is like 5 times the size of the population of Alabama. It is all so spread out too...not meaning a cluster of buildings here and there but non-stop sky rises for miles and miles and miles. It was so windy and we were told that this helped the air quality for us and it really is not nearly as bad as I anticipated. Of course we will see what the next couple of days hold.
Once we got to the Temple of Heaven, we worked our way through millions of people and saw some gorgeous buildings. There is so much symbolism to everything in these historical temples and buildings. Louise was telling us about the yin and yang, yin being a female symbol associated with even numbers and yang being male and odd numbers. There are lots of numerical references to these numbers and lots of 9's and multiples of 9's as that is the largest odd number (yang) and is a symbol of power.
Oops...I got interrupted during my post and lost my train of thought. I will finish later and add on Day 3 (Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City). For now, here are some pictures...
After breakfast, we still had some time before meeting our tour guide (8am) so we went for a walk down the street by our hotel. It's just amazing to see the Chinese characters on all the buildings and signs and to just realize we are in this country that I have been dreaming about for over 5 years. It is beautiful here...warm, about in the low 80's and very windy although it started out a little cool in the morning. My pictures tell that story with my hair all over the place.
We met Louise, Karen, Tony and Kathleen (Karen's mom) at 8am to take off for our tour. We went for about an hour and a half drive to the Great Wall (with a little stop at a Jade Market) and parked at the entrance for the Ju Yong Pass. Supposedly it is one of the hardest parts of the wall to walk since it is mostly steps...all of which are different heights and worn. We saw it and instantly considered it a personal challenge. Before we could start the climb, we stopped at the area of the locks. Louise told us the story (which we had seen on The Amazing Race years ago) that a couple puts a lock on the chain on this part of the wall and throws the key over, signifying that there is nothing that can break them. We had brought a lock from home, although there are tons of people that buy them there and have them engraved with their names. Dad also brought one. We ceremoniously put them on the chain and threw our keys over. It was neat.
Then we started the climb. OMG. We were trying to get to the top of the pass and we kept going and going and going. We lost Jeff about half way up but Dad and I kept trudging. Jeff has a fear of heights...my poor baby. We kept going and going. Just when we would reach a landing thinking it was the highest part, we would look up and see another set of winding steps. So we kept going and going, my legs were shaking and I was sweating. Dad was hard core, always ahead of me. We finally got to a point where we were way past the time that we were supposed to meet our group, we were gave out and there was still another snaking part of the wall ahead, so we cut our losses and turned back. It took us almost 40 minutes just to climb down and by the end my legs were visibly quivering. But I felt good. :) Jeff and I got an ice cream (no points counting here) and we met our group.
From there we went to our Chinese luncheon which was as awesome as breakfast. It was served family style with all the food on a lazy susan in the middle of the table. We had sweet n' sour chicken, breaded chicken, some sweet-ish egg rolls, beef, fish balls, vegetables, a plate of celery (YUCK), noodles, jasmine tea and soup. There was also some Chinese wine that was 56% alcohol...it tasted like rubbing alcohol and provoked some crazy faces. Dad had a little tiny beer with his food. Everything tasted so yummy. I have heard that real Chinese food is not like we get in the US but this was really great.
We then took a little tour of a cloisonne factory and did some small shopping. I haven't bought anything yet...waiting for Lily to get here first. After that, we took another long bus ride to the Temple of Heaven. Traffic is horrible in Beijing. Of course, Louise is well versed in all things Beijing and has told us that there are 16 million people in this city alone. I think that is like 5 times the size of the population of Alabama. It is all so spread out too...not meaning a cluster of buildings here and there but non-stop sky rises for miles and miles and miles. It was so windy and we were told that this helped the air quality for us and it really is not nearly as bad as I anticipated. Of course we will see what the next couple of days hold.
Once we got to the Temple of Heaven, we worked our way through millions of people and saw some gorgeous buildings. There is so much symbolism to everything in these historical temples and buildings. Louise was telling us about the yin and yang, yin being a female symbol associated with even numbers and yang being male and odd numbers. There are lots of numerical references to these numbers and lots of 9's and multiples of 9's as that is the largest odd number (yang) and is a symbol of power.
Oops...I got interrupted during my post and lost my train of thought. I will finish later and add on Day 3 (Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City). For now, here are some pictures...
Me and Jeff at the Temple of Heaven
The Great Wall of China....AMAZING!
Me and Dad after our climb on the Great Wall
Lily's Daddy and Mommy
And here's a link to the album of 150+ pictures if you want to take a look...
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| 2011-05-13 Day 2 - Beijing |
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