handsful

View from our hotel room window.

CCAI has an ingenius way of helping their families get over jet lag.  They keep them running all over town!We had a wonderful day, full of so many things.  Buckle up, I’m going to tell you all about them :)

We met our awesome CCAI guide, Lisa, in the lobby at 9am.  We boarded our private bus and drove to our first stop, Tiananmen Square. This is the largest city center square in the world…it can hold more than 1,000,000 people.  Yep, one million!  Today, it was full of tourists, mostly Chinese people from other parts of China.  We attracted quite a bit of attention, with some of the locals asking to have their pictures taken with us (especially the 2 adorable little blond-haired boys that are with us!).  We had a photographer take a group picture of us, in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace (the building with Chairman Mao’s picture on it).  Here we are posing with the big guy…

Countdown to the Olympics, to begin 08/08/08 – They picked that date as the number 8 is a good number in China.

Next, we started walking toward the Forbidden City.  This is the largest and best preserved imperial palace in the world.  It has many, many palaces with a total of 9,999 rooms.  9 is a very lucky number in China.  We are learning that pretty much everything . . . numbers, animals, symbols, etc, has a meaning over here.  Our guide told us that if you slept in each room from the day you were born, you’d be 27 years old before you’d have to repeat rooms.  Wow.  This is a picture of the emperor’s chair, in his inner court.  We had to walk through 5 gates and courtyards to finally reach this.

If ya’ gotta go, it might as well be in a 4 star rated toilet.  That’s what the sign said…they lied.

Our guide arranged for us to have lunch in an authentic Chinese restaurant downtown.  For those of you concerned that I might starve over here, let me just say that it was…good!  Honest!  Here is a shot from the balcony facing away from the room where we ate and looking down into the bottom of the restaurant.  They still have their Chinese New Year decorations up, it was gorgeous.

The silk factory tour was next.  We were walked through by one of the employees, and she explained every step in making silk and even had us participate in some things (I helped stretch a batting of silk!). Here they are, doing the stretching. They stretch the silk onto the table below, making layers and layers and layers until they have it thick enough to make the silk batting for the blanket.

After making a few purchases at the silk factory (fun!), we were given a rickshaw tour of a Hutong village.

Hutong means “small street or lane between two courtyards”.  It is a neighborhood where all the small homes have their own courtyards, there are no private bathrooms (they use public bathrooms in the neighborhood), and they heat their homes with a special type of coal brick.  We have felt the cold in Beijing . . . walking to the restroom at night could get VERY inconvenient.  That is the main reason why most of the “young” people move out of the Hutong’s and into high-rise apartments.

The highlight of this tour was meeting a retired couple and being invited into their home to meet them and see their living conditions.  Mrs. Tu and Mr. Wu asked us into their living room and we talked and asked questions through the guide. Their home consists of a living room, bedroom, storage room, and kitchen.  It was tiny, but warm and they are truly happy.  I was thrilled to have my picture taken with Mrs. Tu.

This is outside their home…notice the Mickey and Minney CNY decorations still up :)

Men, playing some unknown game on a Friday afternoon

Our day ended with an acrobat show at 5:15.  It was amazing, but most of us at this point were basically trying to stay awake!

We were on our own for dinner tonight, so Randy and a few of the others walked up to McDonald’s to pick up dinner and bring it back to the hotel.  Randy said the hamburger had a very spicy taste to it, very different than US McD’s.  And, rather than pickles on the burgers they put cucumbers.  Abbey, you’d love that!

Tomorrow, we go to the Great Wall…can’t wait for that, even though the high temp for tomorrow is 35.  It was just under 40 today.  Yes, we were cold!!  We also visit the Sacred Way, which is part of the Ming tombs.  Only about 2 1/2 days till Lainey!