Welcome to my blog about Beijing. This blog is one in a series of several blogs about China. I hope that you enjoy! Beijing is the capital of China and is one of its largest cities. Beijing has been the capital of China since the last 5 dynasties. Bei means north and jing means capital in Chinese, so Beijing literally means north capital. About 19.72 million people live in Beijing and it is known as the political center in China. Beijing also has 6.8 million migrant workers. Migrant workers are people with ID cards from different areas in China that come to the city to work. They are not foreigners. The climate in Beijing is very similar to the United States since we live in the same hemisphere. However, there are some differences. For instance it rarely ever snows in Beijing, but in April and the winter they have sand storms that blow through the city. Also in June, July, and August it is very hot in China with temperatures close to 120 degrees with 95% humidity. They have temperatures like that for 3 weeks and call them sauna weeks. The spring and fall are the best times to visit China, because the weather is very pleasant. Our tour guides told us that we picked a good time to come to China, because a week or two later is when sauna week starts. I guess May and Sept are the best months to travel there. Lucky for us that is when this trip fit into our schedule.
Here is a picture of the Beijing Airport. The airport was built in the 1980s and originally had two terminals. But this airport was enlarged during the 2008 Beijing Olympics to add an additional terminal, so now it was three. It is very large now, and it's nick named the Ghost Airport. It's so big that there aren't enough people to use it, and it seems like no one is in large sections of it. So they call it the Ghost Airport. Both times that I was at the airport it did seem like a ghost town so I feel like this title is rightly deserved. Airplanes in China always deliver meals on all of their flights. During our 12 hour flight to Beijing from LAX we received two meals. Dad did not enjoy the flight over to China, because our plane did not have air to blow on you. He was incredibly hot and it seemed like the ride over took forever. The ride home was a lot more enjoyable. It was interesting to hear a plane talking in a different language first and then repeating what they said in English. I'm not used to that, but it was interesting.
Here is an air view of Beijing when we were landing. I was amazed at all of the high rise buildings in the city. I just couldn't believe how many there were. I think you can just barely make it out in this picture.
Here is our first glimpse at our tour manager Joan at the Beijing airport. I was worried that it would be hard to find our group once we arrived in China, but it was extremely easy. We quickly bumped into many people that were going on our tour once we got off the plane and started going through customs. Joan was waiting for us right where we walked out so it wasn't a problem at all.
I knew that the Great Wall of China was located in Beijing so I was immediately looking for it and trying to find it. I saw the wall that is in this picture (which sorry I know it's hard to tell) and I was wondering if it was the Great Wall. But quickly I was told that each city used to have their own city wall, but almost all of them have been torn down. The Beijing city wall was torn down in the 1950s. In 1992 they built two watch towers in the east and west to show people what it used to be like. The picture that I took here is of one of the towers.
Traffic is very busy in Beijing. There are cars and people walking everywhere. You can see that they even have a lane for bicycles to ride on the streets, and then they have additional lanes for cars. Dad and I expected the hotels we visited in China to have adaptors/transformers, but it turns out they did not have transformers at the first hotel we visited. Transformers convert the watts on the outlets. Chinese people use appliances with 220 watts whereas we use 120 so it needs to be converted in order to ensure your appliances don't blow up! Well I had a lot of things that needed to be charged and dad had his breathing machine that he needs to use at night. So we went on a hunt to try to find one. Our guide took everyone in our group for a walk around the areas surrounding our hotel. She pointed out what different stores were, and when she was done with the tour she helped me find dad a transformer. We had to walk quite a ways, but we finally found a store that sold them. I didn't really know how to bargain very well when I first arrived in China so I ended up paying 100 yuan for the transformer. When I brought it back to dad it turns out that it wasn't powerful enough for his machine so we walked back up to where the store was. It turns out that place was a big market place with all kinds of vendors selling adaptors and transformers. I was a little bit upset when people started offering the same transformer I bought to dad for 30 yuan. After that I was much wiser and I didn't get ripped off again. We couldn't find a good adaptor for dad at that market place, but luckily two nice ladies on our tour Shirley and Joyce let us borrow their transformer which worked fine.
Dad and I were surprised how hard it was to find cold water/drinks around our hotel. It seemed like we had to walk all the way down the road to find a place. After a while we decided to check out the magazine stand in front of our hotel. The stand is closed in this picture, but when it was open it had a cooler with ice cold drinks in it. Dad and I were really excited about it.
Throughout the city there were little stands like this one. Dad and I couldn't figure out what it was. Finally we walked by it at the right time and realized that vendors cook breakfast and lunch in it to sell to people. The carts are really small and the people even had to bend over while they cooked. It was pretty interesting.
My overall impressions of the city were that I was stunned by the amount of high rise buildings that were there. It just seemed like everywhere you looked there was a large building. Joan told us that some of those buildings were office buildings and hotels. You can tell the difference because apartments have balcony's or their own individual air conditioning machines. Whereas hotels and office buildings just have glass windows. I was also surprised by how clean and beautiful China is. The streets are very clean in Beijing and the streets have flowers everywhere. It was very nicely landscaped.
Here was our first glimpse of Tienanmen Square. This is where the entrance to the Forbidden City is located. Also in this picture you can see the Dragon Gate, or the large building on the left hand side. In order to get to the emperor people used to have to get through 9 gates. The Dragon Gate was the first gate that they had to get through. Chinese people believe that dragon represents the emperor and a phoenix represents the empress. Most of the old gates have been destroyed. The dragon gate is one of two that is still standing. The other gate is the General Gate. When the emperor that decided to tear the gates down came into power he decided that he couldn't rule China if he tore down these two gates. The dragon gate stands for supreme power, and the general gate stands for control of the military. He believed that if he destroyed what these two gates symbolized he wouldn't be able to rule China.
This is the mausoleum dedicated to Mao Zedong who was the previous leader of China. A lot of poor people truly liked Mao, and there was a HUGE line of Chinese people waiting to pay their respects to him. Our tour guide told us that people all throughout China make a journey to come to Beijing to see his mausoleum.
Tienanmen Square is very beautiful. It was very nicely landscaped. It is located in the very heat of Beijing.
Here is another view of the beautiful area. Tienanmen Square is the size of 60 soccer fields. Very large! October 1st is the Chinese "4th of July", and every 5 years there is a huge celebration at Tienanmen Square.
While we were there a lot of tourists were really excited to see us. I guess a lot of people are from rural areas of China and rarely get to see Western people. Dad was a big hit. After a lot of people asked us to take pictures with them, we decided that we should take a picture of them too. Right after we took this picture a woman and her young daughter walked by us. The little girl shyly stood into the two of us and got a picture. I could tell that she and her mother were extremely excited about it. It was very cute.
I swear we were like celebrities while we were there. People would just walk up next to us and take a picture with us in it. Joan told us that they would take those pictures home and that they would show it to their families to tell them that they had see "big nosed" people.
Here is the other side of the square. We were pretty impressed by this changing board.
It was in the middle of the square and it was very pretty.
Here we are on our way to the forbidden city. We had to go through 2 gates to get to it. In the past you had to go through 9 gates to get to the emperor, but now only 5 exist. I guess having 9 gates most have been a common thing back then. The emperor didn't even use all of the gates. In fact the emperor only used the east gate or the "ghost gate" when they were carrying his coffin out of the forbidden city.
Here we are in front of the Meridian Gate or the formal entrance to the Forbidden City. It is 10 meters tall and it is on a slant. They did not want to build it straight up, because they wanted to make it harder for kung fu masters to climb it.
All of the emperors claimed that they were descended from divine entities, or the Jade Emperor. The Jade Emperor ruled heaven and the mortal world, and he lived in the purple palace or the palace above the sky. The rulers of China claimed to be the Jade Emperor's son sent to rule over the mortal world.
The Forbidden City was built by the 3rd emperor of China in 1406. It took 1 million workers 14 years to complete it. It originally had 10,216 rooms, but now only 7,800 are left. It is divided into two parts; the inner and outer court. The outer court was the emperor's office to handle official business. The inner was the living area or women's work. You can see the bridges behind us in the picture. They are all made out of marble. And the yellow or golden roofs were only allowed to be used by the royal family. If anyone else was caught using them they were executed.
The floor of the Forbidden City is uneven bricks. It is uneven because there are 15 layers of bricks going down into the ground. Different layers face different ways to prevent people from being able to dig their way into the city. Also you will notice that there are no trees around the forbidden city. This was for three reasons. First nothing could be taller than the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City. Second, they didn't want Kung Fu masters to be able to climb them and get into the city. Last, trees mean trouble in Chinese. So there are no trees there. Also I doubt that it could grow with the 15 layers of bricks that they put down.
Bronze lions are very popular in China. They are mythical creatures that are believed to have super natural powers to protect. Everywhere we went in China people had replicas of these two lions. One lion is a female and the other is a male. It's easy to remember which lion is which. For starters the female lion is always on the right hand side, because Chinese women are always right. Or as I like to say women in general... haha.
Also the female lion has a cub under her paw. It represents the circle of life. The female lion is supposed to protect those that are inside the dwelling.
The male lion has a ball under his paw to represent power or the world. He is supposed to protect the outside of the dwelling or the structure of the building. Together they represent ying and yang. Ying and Yang means harmony. When there is harmony there is no war, natural disasters, or illness. It makes sense that these two lions guard the hall of supreme harmony which is the most important building in China.
Here is the Hall of Supreme Harmony it was only used for great ceremonies. The emperors throne room is inside of it. This is considered the most important building in China.
We weren't allowed to go inside, but here is what I could see from looking into it. It was very hard to see because a lot of people were pushing and shoving trying to get in front of it.
You can tell how important a building is based on how many mythical creatures it has on top of it. This building has 11 creatures on it, which is the most any building in China has. I noticed a lot of buildings in the forbidden city had 4 to 8 creatures on top of it.
Located on the marble bridge are 18 burners. In the past China used to be divided into 18 different parts (now it is divided into 34) each of these burners represented a part of China.
In front of it are the crane and the tortoise.
They both stand of longevity.
Here is the Hall of Complete Harmony. This is where the emperor gave speeches and changed into his robes before entering the Hall of Supreme Harmony. You can see that this building has 9 creatures onto of it.
Here is the Hall of Preserving Harmony which was a banquet hall. Are you getting the idea of the what the names are like in China? They are very keen on harmony, it was talked about many many times. Harmony, balance, ying/yang, feng shui are all very important to the Chinese.
The Forbidden City has two bowls at each entrance way. These used to be filled with water to put out fires (they are empty now). However, if there ever was a large fire they wouldn't have held enough water to put it out. A lot of Chinese people were really fascinated with these bowls, and they were trying to touch them and look inside them. Don't let the picture fool you these bowls were as big as me!
If you look in the distance of this picture you can see the tops of several large pavilions. Each pavilion is above a royal garden.
Here are some pictures of the inner court. It was used strictly by the emperor and his family. Men were not allowed into the inner court. So much so that when one of the emperor's sons turned 10 years old his father would build him his own mansion and his son wasn't allowed to come back into the inner court after that. Not even to see his mother. A difference between dynasties and monarchies is that in monarchies the kings eldest son becomes the next king. However, in dynasties this is not always the case. The emperor often choose the son that he wanted to become his heir. In some cases it was his eldest son, or the son of the empress, or just his smartest son. The emperor has more options on selecting his successor than a king does.
You might be wondering why the emperor needed so many rooms if only his family was allowed to be in the inner court. In those days "owning" more wives meant the more rich and powerful the man. So... one emperor could have up to 3,000 wives. He had his main/first wife who was the empress, and then the rest of his wives were called concubines. These women were very competitive with each other and always tried to get the emperor's attention. The ages of the concubines were between 13 and 16. Every 5 years the emperor's men would go out and try to find the prettiest girls in China, and bring them back to the emperor. Then the whole royal family would inspect the girls and the emperor would select the girls he liked the best. Once they moved into the inner court they were never allowed to leave and go home to their families again.
Part of the emperor's daily routine included a tray being brought to him with a cards on it for the emperor to choose which wife he wanted to be with that night. The selected concubine would be told at noon that she was to entertain the emperor that night, and she would prep herself the rest of the day to beautify herself. Before the emperor entered the room, she was checked to make sure she didn't have any sharp objects so that she couldn't assassinate him. This must have been a big fear, because the emperor slept in a different concubine's room every night so it wasn't easy to find him, and after two hours the concubines had to leave the room and let the emperor have the room to himself. Once they were done if he coughed once that meant he would claim any child that she had in the upcoming months, but if he coughed twice he was not pleased by the concubine and she would be given a soup that would give her an abortion. Sometimes this drink killed the women as well. Another fun fact is that in some dynasties, when the emperor died any concubine that had not had the pleasure of sleeping with him were put to death with him, so that they could keep him company in the afterlife. However, in some dynasties this was not the case.
In this picture you can see a large step in front of a door. This is very common throughout China. A LOT of doors have this enlarged step. It was thought that ghosts could only glide, and that they couldn't jump. So these steps were put up to keep the ghosts out of the building.
This is Dowager Cixi aka the Dragon Lady. She was mentioned a lot during our tour in Beijing. She basically ran China for 48 years through controlling various young emperors. She helped three young emperor's throughout the years, and once they got old enough to rule on their own they mysteriously died. While the emperor's were young she would set a yellow curtain behind their throne, and then she would sit behind it, and tell them how to respond to questions.
This is the Dragon Lady's residence in the inner court. This was the main building but there were a few more on the side of it. She ruled until the last dynasty fell in China. The last emperor of China was three years old. He had to be in front of a large group of people, and he started crying and making a fuss saying that he didn't want to be there. He was comforted and told "don't worry it won't last long". The Chinese people heard this and thought of it as a bad omen. The dynasty ended a few years after this. But during his rule the Dragon Lady was the real ruler of China. I'll tell more about her when I talk about the summer palace.
Here as some pieces of jade that were found in the Dragon Lady's house. Jade is extremely valued in China. Most Chinese women prefer it to diamonds. Chinese people make everything out of jade, and there are actually some remarkable carvings made out of jade.
Here is one of the smaller royal gardens. This garden was specifically for concubines to come and enjoy during their massive amounts of free time. The entire garden was symmetrical. Although, this is not a requirement of Chinese gardens.
There are four characteristics that a Chinese garden has to have in order to be considered beautiful. First it has to have lots of trees and flowers. Second it needs to have water. Third it has to have unique architecture like the building in this picture.
And last, it has to have rocks.
And this garden did not disappoint, it had an EXTREMELY impressive display of rocks. These rocks were massive. The picture just does not do it justice. We were so incredibly impressed by this. It was hard to take a picture with the whole structure in it. I'm amazed that I didn't get any other people in this picture, because people were swarming it. Also, we found out that later in the season this turns into a fountain and has water running through it. In the past it was considered that the more rocks that a family had in their garden the more wealthy they were considered. This rock formation was incredibly expensive and very impressive.
Here is a picture of the wall and moat that surrounds the Forbidden City.
Here is a picture of Beijing's flower called Chinese roses. Some are an orange/pinkish color and others are just yellow. These flowers look like a traditional rose, but they do not have any scent.
Here is dad and I at lunch. The size of our plates and cups definitely took some adjusting to!! I don't think that dad was a big fan of it. Also, when you got a little cup with a drink inside of it, you did not get free refills!! So you really had to savor the little bit that you had. Luckily the plates were always able to be refilled. We usually ate "family style" types of meals, and shared different entres with other people in our group.
Here is our tour guide Joan. She was a very good tour manager. We felt very lucky to have gotten her. She was very funny and insightful. She kept talking about her Chinglish which is like Spanglish, but the Chinese verison of it. She kept saying, "Can you understand my Chinglish?" I think that everyone thought that was funny.
Here is dad and I at the Summer Palace. The whole time I was there I couldn't help but think of the Sun Palace in France. I was hoping that we would get to go inside the buildings and tour the area, but alas we weren't allowed inside any buildings. So I can't really say if the inside of the palace was beautiful or not.
However, I can say that the surrounding area was very pretty. The summer palace is not very far from the Forbidden City, and 900 years ago it was a private garden. About 500 years ago an emperor made it a royal garden. Back then this lake in the picture above used to be pretty small. However, the emperor wanted to give his mother a grand birthday present so he had this lake enlarged for her as a present. In 1860, the French invaded Beijing and burned a lot of things down. In 1888, the Dragon Lady rebuilt the garden and named it the Harmony Garden. She liked it so much that she built the palace and stayed their during the summer months. This is how it got it's name as the Summer Palace.
It was tradition of every emperor to build a stationary boat on the water. The boat represented the emperor and the water represented the people. It was a reminder that people can either carry the boat or turn it over. It was meant to remind them to be a good emperor and to take care of the people.
Here is a picture of the longest covered walkway in the world. It has over 14,000 pictures painted on it. It was over 700 meters long, and led to the living quarters of the palace.
Here is a zoomed in picture of some of the paintings. There was a painting on each area of the walkway. Each picture was unique and told different Chinese stories and legends.
Here is a "dome" type of area. There were several areas like this throughout the walkway. You can tell that the colors are still fresh and vibrant even though the paintings are hundreds of years old. This is because every 5 years students are brought in from art schools to repaint all of the paintings so that they do not fade.
Here is a tradition Chinese Pi Low. This is very stereotypical Chinese architecture, and if you go to Disney's Epcot you'll see that something similar to this is replicated in the Chinese section of the world. However, despite their current popularity, back in the day these decorations were only supposed to be used by royal families.
Here is the Dragon Lady's living quarters. Or at least part of it. Her rooms were divided into 5 different areas, where she did different functions. In one area she ate. And when I say she ate... she ate! She was served 30 porridges, 60 snacks, and 128 hot dishes with each dinner. A servant would eat with silver chopsticks before she ate. It was thought that if there was something poisonous in the food, the silver would change color and alert the Dragon Lady. Or the servant would become ill/die first. After she ate whatever food she desired the rest of the food was passed out to other people that were living with her. Also, in front of this room you can see statues of 2 cranes, 2 deers, and 2 vases. This was supposed to mean peace.
Here is dad and I on the opposite side of the Summer Palace. Isn't the view beautiful?? In this lake are oysters. The Dragon Lady used to crush up pearls and use egg whites to put the pearl dust on her face. It was supposed to make her skin more beautiful and youth like. Women still do this in China today, and when we went to a pearl store they sold pearl cream. This was also very commonly used among concubines to maintain their youthful/attractive appearance.
It was rumored that there was buried treasure in the lake. So in the 50's the lake was completely drained to check. However, no treasure was found.
Here is the political building, where the Dragon Lady conducted business.
In front of the building is a phoenix and a dragon. Sorry that this isn't a high quality picture there were a lot of people in this area and it was hard to get a good picture. Now, remember a dragon stands for emperor and the phoenix stands for empress. Normally most buildings have the dragon placed in front of the phoenix. However, the Dragon Lady thought that she was so clever and so much more important than a man... that the phoenix deserved to be first.
This statue in front of the building is very unique. He has the head of a dragon, antlers of a deer, hooves of an ox, and fish scales over his body. He is supposed to be able to tell right from wrong. If a person stands in front of him that is not a good person he will move and kick them. So you can stand in front of him to see if you are a good person. This was a very popular thing to do. But here you can see the proof that dad is a good person!
And so am I!
While we were in the area a lot of different vendors were selling things. The most tempting stuff was the corn on the cob and the sweet potatoes. The sweet potatoes smelled absolutely amazing!! We were told not eat any produce off of the streets that couldn't be peeled, because of the poor quality of China's water. We really wanted to though!!
Here we are at the pearl shop. Different pearls mean different things. For example white means longevity and pink means youth. All oysters have black rings on their shell. You can tell how old an oyster is by how many rings it was on it, which is pretty similar to telling the age of a tree. If a oyster has 9 rings that means longevity. Also the age of the pearl will determine how many pearls are inside of it. In the oyster that we were shown in our demonstration there was over 30 pearls inside!! I was very impressed by that. I guess Sea World fooled me back in the day when they dived for pearls to make jewelry out of, because I always only got one pearl! I suppose those were a lot smaller and younger oysters, but I digress. Fresh water pearls have more colors than salt water pearls. There are pink, purple, black, and white pearls. It takes 15 years to get a big enough pearl for nice jewelry. The price of a pearl is based on 3 factors. It's size, laster, and shape. Despite common belief color is not a determining factor. However, it does take over 10 years for a black pearl to develop which is the rarest pearl color. There are two ways to tell if a pearl is real. First you can rub it against your teeth, and if you feel sand then it is a real pearl. If it feels smooth it is fake. Another way is to rub the pearls together. If they are real a white powder will appear, but if there is a fake one mixed in the color will not be white.
Later on that night we had some free time, and we wanted to explore some different parts of Beijing. We heard that there was a night market in Beijing that had tons of vendors and was very interesting. So Joan gave us directions on how to get there and back using the subway system. She warned us to be careful around strangers. She said that people would approach you and tell you that they wanted to practice their English with you, and then they would convince you to go somewhere with them, and lead you into a trap. She said that one time a tourist followed a stranger to tea shop, and had to pay 5,000 yuan for a cup of tea. Which is near $800. Or they would take them to an antique store and force them to buy junk "antique" stuff for outrageous prices, or they wouldn't let them leave. Often times the tourist is so confused as to where they were at when it happened that they can't identify where the place was. So Joan told us you can talk with local people just don't follow them anywhere.
Well not a minute after we got off the subway train this couple came up to us, and started talking to us. They told us that they were practicing their English and they kept complimenting us on how good our Chinese was (we only knew about 3 words). But they were incredibly nice to us. Dad needed to find a transformer and they walked us around to different stores, and tried to help us find one. They walked us through the night market and explained what different things were to us. They told us all about themselves, and we were really enjoying being around with them.
Once we got to the end of the night market dad asked them what they did for a living, and they told us that they were painters and that they painted landscapes. Dad told them how he makes cornhole boards and paints them. They both got really excited and asked him to explain what it was, and then they asked us if we wanted to come and see their artwork. Dad and I both froze and were like umm... no we can't. And they were like our apartment is just right down this street, it won't take long at all. Now this is after we had spent a better part of the night with them, and they had been nothing but kind to us. But Joan's warning was still fresh in our minds so we told them that we had to get back to our hotel. They seemed kind of sad, but didn't question us. They wished us well and headed off to their apartment. But I can't help but wonder what would have happened if Joan had not warned us? Because had she not warned us specifically not to follow strangers we definitely without a doubt would have. Dad and I were talking about it later on, and we were thinking that people aren't just stupid... they don't follow people that seem shady or mean. The people that lay traps for people would have to be friendly and nice to the people to get them to trust them and to follow them. But I just can't imagine that those nice people had any bad intentions, but I guess you never know. I bet the people drinking the 5000 yuan tea would have never thought those people would have conned them either.
Here are some pictures from the night market.
Here are some cooked and live scorpions and other types of bugs on a stick!! Yikes! We ran across a young group of Americans about my age, and they had bought a cooked scorpion. They offered to let us try some, but we didn't want to! They told us that it tasted like potato chips but for some reason I can't help but doubt that!
Here is another view of the market. There were people selling stuff everywhere. Dad did break down and try a corn on the cob. It was the nastiest corn I have ever had! It was like field corn or something. It tasted leathery. After that dad had stomach issues for the next couple of days. Coincidence? I think not.
Here we are on our hunt of toe nail clippers. Dad had a bad hang nail and he was in desperate need of toe nail clippers. We had to hunt the city to find one! And it was even harder because we couldn't find anyone that spoke English. We went into a pharmacy hoping that they would have it. We played charades with the clerk, and she told us that the next store over sold them. Well when we walked out of the pharmacy we looked at the store, and it was a high end department store like Macy's. And we were like no way does that place sell toe nail clippers she must have meant somewhere else. So we walked to the next store down, and the woman told us again it was the next store down. So we were stumped. We walked into the department store in the perfume area and asked the girl working there, and she told us that it was on the 4th floor. So we went up to the next level... it was all women's clothes. Went up to the third level... all women's clothes. And of course the escalators weren't next to each other so we had to walk all the way around the department to get the next elevator to go up. This is after having walked all day, and we were both dog tired. I truly thought we were on a goose chase. We thought that the woman must not have understood us right. So we get up to the fourth floor and it's all men's clothing. Finally I found a girl and played charades again, and she nodded and pointed to the opposite side of the store. And I looked and all I saw was clothes. So I looked back at her and I must have seen confused because she walked us over. And I was like no way there are going to be toe nail clippers here. But I'll be darned if they didn't have a case with various misc junk! They had fancy lighters and wouldn't ya know it toe nail clippers!!! I was cracking up as dad got them. I couldn't believe we found them. It took us like an hour to find those darn things!!
This is our tour guide from the Jade factory that we went to. Chinese people love jade... much more than diamonds. 80% of the jade in the world comes from China. Most people think that jade is just the traditional green color, but we learned that it comes in a variety of colors. Jade has a hardness of 8 and diamonds have a hardness of 10. Diamonds are the only thing that can cut jade.
Jade has over 7,000 years of history in China. There is even a phrase "Jade lady" which describes a very gentle, nice, and beautiful woman. Chinese people make a lot of thing of things out of jade including this statue of Buddha that I am rubbing. Items made of jade are usually passed down as family heirlooms. The value of jade is determined by three factors it's color, translucency, and clarity. The darker the jade is the more value it has. When you ding on it, it sounds like a bell. Also it is very heavy, cold, and it can scratch glass.
Here is dad rubbing Buddha's belly.
Here is the worker at the Jade factory touching dad's "Buddha Belly" there were actually quite a few people that wanted to do this to dad. The Chinese were fascinated by his belly.
Here is an intricate jade design. I know that it is hard to make out, but each other those different colors of jade is a horse. We were really excited about it.
Here was my first glimpse of the Great Wall of China!
Before dynasties were established there were seven different kingdoms in China. The first emperor, Ching, united China and ordered the wall to be built. This was over 2005 years ago, but the walls that we see today are only 600 years old. The wall is 3,970 miles long, and there are seven different passes that the public are able to climb. We went to the Yan Sen pass.
Now before I went to China I wasn't really sure what I expected the Great Wall to be like. When people said "We are going to climb the Great Wall of China" I felt like saying... define climbing. I wasn't sure if we were going to be climbing up a ladder onto the wall, or how it would look like. Well it turns out that the entire wall is an uphill climb up steps with some flat platform type areas. And none of the steps are the same width or height. Some steps are small... some are steep. It really varies. I found the steps towards the bottom more challenging than some at the top.
It is said that one can not be a hero of China until they have climbed the Great Wall. Well... dad and I both can officially be heroes of China! Dad did really well and climbed up some really steep steps and made it up a level.
Here we are getting ready to make our journey up! Do you see that little tiny house at the top of this hill?? Well I climbed up PAST that!!
I ended up walking ahead of dad. He walked with a woman in our group named Amanda. We were able to choose two sections of the wall to climb. The hard part and the harder part. I think only three people in our group went up the harder part and most of us climbed the hard section. However, Amanda's husband, Ron, was one of the brave people that tried the harder section. I was glad that Amanda was able to climb with my dad, because I think they had a lot of fun together, and I didn't feel as bad taking off on my own.
As I was walking up the wall I saw several locks attached to one of the railings. This reminded me a lot of Verona, and Juliet's balcony. Later on I asked Joan what it was for and she confirmed my suspicions. After Chinese wedding ceremonies many couples come and place a lock on the Great Wall and then throw the key together. This is supposed to symbolize that their love will last forever. It's called a Love Lock.
Here I am climbing up into one lookout posts that are stationed around the great wall.
By this time I had been stopped enough times that I decided I wanted to get my picture taken with the people that requested it. And boy was I popular when I was at the Great Wall. I think I must have had my picture taken AT LEAST 50 times by people.
Here is the picture I took with that guys buddy.
Here is dad and I in the look out house. I like this picture!
Here I was looking up at my next leg of my journey. I still had a loooong way to go!
Here I am sitting on the steps. I was posing with other people sitting down like this, and I had them snap a picture of me too because I liked the pose.
Once you get to the top of the Great Wall they have a gift shop that sell medals. They engrave these medals with your name and the date that you climbed the wall. They sell the medals at the bottom too, but they don't engrave them there. I was so proud to have made it to the top, so I had to buy a medal. It was too cool not to!
The higher I climbed up the Great Wall... the more interesting I became. I ran into a family of four generations of women. A girl about my age, her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. They were all climbing up to the top of the wall together... which is amazing. I took several picture with them. I wish I had taken one of the group of them. But the girl I'm posing with in this picture was in a group of about 10 girls... I honestly wanted her friend to just take a picture of me with the pretty background behind me, but this girl was standing there and she got so excited that I wanted the picture with her... so I just kind of went with it and then I swear every single one of those girls wanted a picture with me. Then they wanted to do combo shoots. They wanted one with this friend and then one with that friend... and they each wanted it on their camera. I was there for AT LEAST 15 minutes taking different pictures with. The peace sign is a popular pose in China, and I ended up doing that one a lot. Finally, I didn't think I was going to have enough time to climb down to catch my bus... so I told them that I had to go!! I said ok last one! Only one more... and then the girls would be like oh no no please please! I felt bad to say no. But I guess I know how celebrities feel now!
Remember that tiny building that I talked about before? Well here I am touching it!
And finally after all of my hard work I made it to the end! It was really hard to make it up, but I was determined to do it. Lately when something challenging has come up... I can't help but think... well I climbed the Great Wall of China so I can do this!
The views up at the top were really beautiful.
Here is a different angle.
Chinese people don't commonly wear shorts. So I felt funny wearing them for the first couple of days I was there. So here I am wearing my black shirt and jeans... climbing up the Great Wall in the heat! The next day I didn't feel shy about wearing shorts anymore!! People were so kind while I was walking up the wall. Almost every group that I stopped to take pictures with offered me some water... which by the way... is a must if you are ever going to try to climb the wall. I had a bottle in my purse, and it was bone dry by the time I got down.
Here I am walking down the wall. My legs were shaking so bad!! I was walking like a duck for the next couple of days too. Here are a couple girls that I took pictures with. Now they were pretty smart and brought an umbrella. It was SUCH a relief to get out of the sun and under the umbrella. However, they were a little bit shorter than me so my head kept hitting into it... But they were both really nice. They kept telling me how beautiful I was, and then giggling.
Here is the ghost theme park. It had plans to be built years ago, but the project was abandoned. Disney is actually planning on making the first Disney World in Shanghai in 2015. I'm really curious to see how well the park will do in China. Chinese people are very focused on studying for school, and I wonder if they will spare the time to go to Disney? My tour guide mentioned many times how precious children were to Chinese people, and that they would do anything for their child. It will be interesting to see how it does.
Here we are going to see the giant pandas at the China Zoo. I was hoping that we would get to tour more than just the panda section of the zoo, but unfortunately the panda section and the rest of the zoo were separate. We really didn't have a whole lot of time while we were there anyways.
The original zoo was established during the Dragon Lady's reign. She had a lot of exotic animals and wanted to have a place to keep them and show them to people. So the zoo's location is in between the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. The current zoo was established in the 1950's. It is most famous for having Giant Pandas, which are the traditional black and white pandas. It is very rare for any other zoo in the world to have a giant panda. The Chinese government claims all rights to giant pandas, but will loan them out for 10 year periods at a cost of a million dollars per year and the provision that any cubs that are born are property of China. Needless to say not many zoos have giant pandas outside of China. We were told that the zoo in Washington DC does have them. *insert your own joke about the national debt here*
There are about 1,600 pandas in the wild, and most live in the Willou Mountains. There are a couple of reasons why there aren't a lot of pandas left. First of all pandas live on their own and usually don't get along very well. Second male and female pandas living in different areas in China. There is only one week in April that a female panda comes into "heat". If the pandas mate and like each other they will stay together for about 5 days and then separate. If that didn't make the odds against them enough pandas pregnancies usually last about 100 days, and they usually have 1 baby. Sometimes they can have 2 or 3 babies, but in that case they choose the baby that they think is the strongest and abandon the other ones. So they don't really mate very often and when they do they only have one baby at a time in the wild. Scientists in zoos are trying to help with this, by distracting the mother and switching the babies out in zoos so that both babies get their mothers milk, and one isn't abandoned. The scientists are trying to limit their interaction with the babies so that they can learn more from their mother and survive when they are released into the wild.
The China Zoo has 15 pandas, but only puts three pandas out at a time. When we were there, there was only one that was outside and walking around. The others were inside and hiding. I guess pandas spend most of their time sleeping and eating. We were there during eating time. I always thought that pandas only at bamboo... however, it turns out that they also eat the tree monkeys that live in the bamboo trees. I guess they pound on the trees to get the monkeys to run out of their nests and then they catch the monkey... let it go... then catch it again... and keep playing with it, until they finally decide to eat it. In the winter, people in villages try to dry out big strips of pork to store them better and the pandas come down into the villages and eat the pork. So they are definitely not bamboo loving vegetarians like I thought they were!
Some other random facts are that pandas are really good swimmers and they can climb fast. Their biggest predator is wild dogs. Usually if they are being attacked they will put their back against a big rock or tree and then use their claws to slash at the dogs.
These two torches symbolize the 55 minority groups that are in China. And the area is a place where people tell about their different beliefs.
Here is the entrance to the 2008 Beijing Olympic area. People in Beijing are very proud that the Olympics were in their city, and the city went through a lot of changes to accommodate the Olympics. First of all three years before the Olympics came to Beijing, the city decided to relocate the majority of the factories operating in the city to different parts of China. They wanted to make sure that the air was cleaner in Beijing when the games were held. Then a whole village had to be moved to build the Olympic buildings. All migrant workers that lived in Beijing were required to leave the city. Also, all local people were encouraged to leave Beijing at this time. I guess it was very very difficult for them to get tickets to any events anyway, because corporations bought up all of the tickets to pass out to higher up individuals in their companies. Furthermore, there were also some regulations put in place to decrease the amount of traffic in Beijing during the Olympics. First a lane was added specifically just for people that were part of the Olympics. Then every other day different people were allowed to drive. For instance if you had an odd license plate number you could use your car one day, and then the next day people with even license plate numbers were allowed to use their car. Joan told us that the traffic was excellent during that time.
Originally I did not know what this building was. I was just in my bus snapping pictures of it because I thought that it look really cool. It wasn't until we went to the Olympic area that I realized it was a super fancy hotel that was built specifically for the event. It is called the Dragon Building and I guess they joke that it has a 7 star rating. Joan told us that it was the nicest hotel in Beijing. Can you make out the dragon shape?? I was really impressed with how much Chinese culture and traditions were represented in the Olympic buildings and preparations. Even the gold, silver, and bronze medals had different shades of jade included on them.
I have always heard of Feng shui, or that the way things are arraigned can bring you good fortune or good luck. Feng means heavenly wind and Shui means earthly ground. So this idea also encompasses ying/yang as well. When you look at the birds nest behind us, which can hold 800,000 people by the way, it is made with steel beams which means young and its circular shape represents the sky/heaven. Which is the after life or death. So the designs features have ying and yang.
Similarly the building that held all of the water events was built with this in mind as well. The building is literally decorated with drops of water, and the square shape represents Earth. So water and Earth.. ying and yang.
You can barely see it but this shows the Olympic circles. The Bird's Nest is now being re-purposed for different large events like concerts and other large events. A lot of stadiums were built at colleges during this time too. These are being used by the different colleges now. The Olympics made a couple of other impacts on Beijing as well. First of all, Beijing started to educate it's people on why keeping the city clean was very important. People used to litter and spit on the ground, and the fine was 1/2 a yuan or what we would call fifty cents. If people got caught and had to pay the fine they say here's a yuan... keep the change and I'll spit again later. So they upped the fine to 50 yuan for the first offense, 500 for the second, 5,000 for the third... and etc.. Funny enough Beijing is a pretty clean city now a days. Also, it was realized that Chinese people didn't know how to properly cheer at different events. For example, Joan talked about a symphony that came to Beijing. Instead of standing up and applauding and cheering at the end of the performance, the people sat in their chairs and smiled and nodded at the performers. The people did not know that it was custom to applaud or show that they enjoyed the performance in any matter other than smiling and nodding. Can you imagine how the symphony performers must have felt at getting that reaction?? So, before the Olympics came to Beijing the government gave lessons or educated the people on how to "properly" show their appreciation at the different events that would be at the Olympics.
And of course our group was still popular while we were here. Here is one of the groups that took a picture with us.
Here is a picture of the restaurant we went to to get Peking Duck. Peking is Cantonese for Beijing. Peking and Beijing are written the same in Chinese, but just pronounced differently. So Peking duck basically means Beijing duck. The Peking duck is only found in a specific area of Beijing.
Here we are at our dinner table with Joan. I think this was the only restaurant that we went to that gave everyone free refills.
Before we were given our Peking duck the chef came out and showed us how they cut the duck.
Then the waitress came and made us each a plate. She showed us how to properly assemble the duck into a fajita type of style.
Here is my completed duck plate. You take a thin fajita, dip the duck in some sauce, put it onto the fajita, and then add some thinly sliced cucumbers and onions. Lastly you wrap it all up and eat it. It was pretty good. I have to admit I didn't really like the duck without their dipping sauce. I thought that the Peking Duck was good. I'm not sure if I would necessarily say that it was extremely better than any other duck that I have had anywhere else. I suppose it was cut a lot thinner and seemed more tender than my previous experiences with duck meat.
I ate quite a few fajitas, because I thought that was all of the food that we were going to have, but boy was I wrong!! They kept bring out plate after plate of different dishes to eat. I was shocked, but I think everyone left very full and happy.
I think the highlight of the evening happened when this dish was brought out. There was one plate that was set down before it, and Cindy mentioned that she wouldn't eat it because you never knew what it was. She said what if it's gizzards or private parts of animals or something. Then our server promptly announced that she was giving us "chicken balls." Our whole table broke out laughing, we all thought that it was hilarious. It was just one of those things that had perfect timing. It was even funnier because the girl didn't understand why were laughing. Joan came over and tried to figure it out too, but we couldn't explain it. They were both really complexed which I think made it even funnier. Now that I'm writing about it... I realize it's probably one of those "you had to be there" type of moments. And just for the record... they were chicken nuggets.
Here is the hotel that we stayed in. I think dad was a little bit upset to realize that the air conditioning didn't always work in our room, but overall it was a pretty standard hotel room. The beds were pretty comfortable and the breakfast was pretty good.
Here is the pretty hotel lobby. I think that we really enjoyed our part of the tour in Beijing. Looking back on it, I think that Beijing was probably my favorite city that we visited. Beijing has a lot of historical and famous places... between the Forbidden City, the night market, the zoo, and the Great Wall there was plenty of highlights in Beijing, and I don't think we were ever worried or disappointed the whole time we were there. If someone asked me what one city I would recommend going to in China... I'm pretty sure that I would recommend Beijing. However, I must say that our tour of Beijing was even more enjoyable because Joan was our local guide there. She was very funny, personable, and interesting to listen to. She really made Beijing special for me, and I enjoyed it a lot.
