Beijing Day 3, Saturday May 14th, 2011

This statue is also standing gaurd at the entrance to the Summer Palace and is holding down a ball and I absolutely can't remember what that stands for... except maybe prosperityl




 

This is where the entertainment programs were held todat inside of  the Summer Palace.



Beautiful music!




Young Chinese dancers...they were soo beautiful!





I climbed many steps to get this beautiful picture/view.  Still at the Summer Palace.





 





Here we are at the silk factory seeing how a silk quilt is made!



Mom, me an Tony at Tian'anmen Square.

 


 




The Forbidden City



Well, today is Saturday, May 14th…my birthday, and what an amazing day I have had full of sightseeing we have had!  We started out going to the Summer Palace and a funny thing happened to me as we were walking to the entrance...a little Chinese woman patted me on the back and stroked the back of my hair.  She then put her olive skin toned arm next to my very white arm and just laughed.  She kept patting me and talking to me in Chinese...couldn't understand a word.  She was very friendly, I guess she had never seen anyone quite like me...ha! 

Anyway...I digress... the Summer Palace is where the Emperor of China would go to live during the summer months.  It is the famous classical royal garden in China.  We saw beautiful buildings, as it is known as the cream of Chinese classical architecture.  We saw 3 different performances; one was music with several young Chinese adults playing historic musical instruments and Chinese music.  It was beautiful.  The next was 3 young Chinese girls dressed in long robes performing a beautiful Chinese dance, and the last performance was by two young Chinese men as they acted out an ancient battle.  These were all very good.  We then climbed a gazillion steps to see the beautiful view of the Summer Palace.  We walked through the garden and through a famous “long corridor” and were going to take the “dragon” boat trip back, but the wind was pretty bad and they cancelled all boat rides…so we had to walk to our bus!

Our next stop was to a silk factory, where we learned how silk was made.  They showed us the process of the silk worm and how the silk comes to fruition through its cocoon.  It was a neat process!  After the silk factory, we went to another Chinese restaurant and had more authentic Chinese food and it was VERY good.  We all ate well!  But unfortunately….after lunch…we had to go to the restrooms.  Here in China, in the women’s restrooms, you are lucky to get one Western toilet…the rest are what we refer to as “squatty potties”! Ha….these are little porcelain holes in the floor where you have to squat to use the potty.  To be honest, it is a little traumatic to use them…hahaha…but we have had to adapt.

We then went to Tian’anmen Square.  This is the largest urban square in the world today, with an area up to 44 acres and can accommodate one million people for holding a grand opening.  It was very impressive!  One of the things that we saw in the square was the Monument to the People’s heroes, which honors those individuals who gave up their lives fighting for their country.  The square is a large open, outdoor space and we walked through it to get to the Forbidden City.  The Forbidden City was the imperial palace that the Monarchs of the Ming and Qing dynasties had used for handling state affairs and living.  It is the largest and best preserved ancient palace complex in the world.  It is called The Forbidden City because common people were not allowed to enter…only the Emperor and his family.  It is an amazing, beautiful place!

We have had a full, busy and wonderful day of seeing Beijing!  Our next few hours will be spent packing up and getting ready to head to Nanchang in the morning.  Our flight leaves out at around 11:30 am and we will be arriving there around 1:30pm, going to the bank there to exchange money, getting to our hotel….and THEEEEEENNNNN…….at 4:30pm(4:30AM Knoxville time), Sunday May 15^th…WE WILL GET SOPHIE!!!!!  YAYAYAYA!!!!!!!!!   Welp gotta go and get ready… ready… ready!!!!  Love to all!!!!