Tienanmen square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace and Peking Duck...

Security

We had a big walking day today with Tienanmen Square, across the way to Forbidden City and across the city to the Summer Palace.  the Pollution in Beijing was good at 3 parts per million, yet we could barely see the sun and the sky was grey all day.  Our group wore masks for the pollution.  Tienanmen  square had extra security for an official meeting going on across the street.  Our legs still hurt from our Great Wall climb yesterday.

An important government meeting was happening so we had extra security. 

In the Forbidden city  we could tell how important the building was by the amount of animals on the roof edge.  Nine was the top of the top.  Odd numbers are the lucky ones in China.  We saw a bridge and our guide said "this is the bridge with 18 round arches." I said "very unlucky" he said... "no,9 and 9"  ohhhhhh.

We had quite a few people ask if they could take our picture.  Mostly young adult age.  Some took pictures of themselves and situated themselves so they were just in front of us with our backs turned.  I would turn around and give them a huge smile and usually the photographer would be laughing terribly and show the.

We walked past some girls on a bench and two of them were following me with their phone movie cameras.  I said Hello and Ne-How. They all yelled out hello and giggled.  I asked if I could take their picture.  they were delighted! and all said a very cheery goodbye.

The summer palace was not as busy. We saw the famous Jade boat (Jade dock that looks like a boat)

Our last dinner was Peking duck (Duck taco) They showed us how to fix it.  We liked the chopsticks holders so we bought them from the dining room.

By the way... the food here was terrific, unlike our last trip... Rachael and Frances couldn't eat Chinese food for a whole year!

The Olympics brought in many things, good food, bathrooms in every home, cleaner streets, English signs, English speakers.

We have a better route home so our over the ocean flight will be 11 hours instead of 15. 

The flight that disappeared is pretty freaky, especially since we are flying out of Beijing!  Sounds like a movie to me.... maybe that is they way Enoch's people were lifted up?

 This has been a really nice transition for Janell.  We have not been able to get on Youtube, facebook and blogs.  Censored in China.  So a big Thank you to Frances for posting our emails and pictures to our blogs!

We go backwards so our 15 hours of travel will get us there 2 hours after we leave.  I am hoping for some more good movies.  Some in our group were on China air with the old fashioned one movie on screens that they played twice.  Delta is the way to go and..... I got an email saying I have now earned a free trip.  Where to next?  I will have to look on groupon for some deals. Turkey, India, Thailand?  We traveled again with Gate1 and were very happy with their services and especially the price. we will definitely use them again.

The Great Wall

We did the great wall.  Our guide said we could go the easy side or the harder side so we decided on the harder side... meaning steeper and more uneven steps.  We climbed to the top of where it was restored and went down an alternate way.  Janell did her dance in several places.  the alternate route down put us pretty far from the bus, so a young couple went on a scouting trip, got our guide's attention and the bus picked us up.

The wall is truly amazing.  We have been singing Mulan songs as we have seen the sites.  Definitely a must-see for us upon arrival!   BTW I wouldn't have gone to the top but they just kept encouraging.... "a little further, just till we get to the look- out tower... oh my look at this view up here... this is amazing..."

we were famished!  Our two restaurants didn't have any forks.... very local. One of our ladies gave us a lecture on how they should have forks, they are so much easier.  I asked our guide Tom is he had a fork in his house.  He said no and a big worry of his when he makes his trip to the US in a few years is forks.  I told him to bring his chopsticks.  He said he has no idea how to cut individual pieces of meat at the table.  It is a learning process.  Unfortunately we can't teach him..... there are NO FORKS!  Lauren and Janell donated their hair ties so Lauren could make some training chopsticks for some of our fellow travelers.  they appreciated them.  I will carry my spork today for someone to use.

Beijing Day 1

Drummers after climbing the drum tower

We transferred to Beijing.  Our third domestic flight 1 hour 45 min.  We took a tour to the drum tower and saw the drummers drum.

We took a Hutong (Old city) tour including pedicab.

Pedicabs in a row

We then left the group going to the hotel, and made our own foodie trip.  First we stopped at McDonalds to have the recommended Taro tart (like apple pie).  They loved it.  

Taro pie from McDonalds

We took a cab to the food market to see the street food and saw some amazing stuff.  Notice I did not say "ate". we were spectators for most of the food experience.

Note to cab driver for "Food Street"

Pigeon

Corn on the Cob

Xi'an

Today we had a full, full day in Xi’an (She-on) Home of the Terracotta Warriors.  We stopped by a large park where there were thousands of people doing exercize and activities.  We stopped at groups and participated in their activities. 

First  we joined young adults doing some exercises to popular Chinese music.  Then Hacky sacks, then fan/umbrella dancing.  They had a “drum major” or traffic officer kind of conducting the traffic of the dancers.  Each group had at least 25 people, some groups had hundreds.  We also participated in general exercises, ballroom dancing and Chinese country line dancing.  We passed by a bunch of men… in a storytelling group and a co-ed singalong group. It was invigorating and the locals loved us being there, taking pictures of us participating. 

We went to a lacquer shop (I guess the best lacquer is here and comes naturally from trees). We didn’t buy a thing.
Then  we stopped at the Terracotta warriors.  They  were amazing… We spent almost 3 hours there. Pretty much blown away.

We had a dumpling dinner and finished our day in the Muslim marketplace.  Haggling.  

  In the market place I noticed a young adult taking a picture of herself behind us so I put my arm around her so we could get her a real picture of foreigners.  She loved it.
We wanted to take the bus back… #12 for 1 Yuan each which is about 17 cents.  We waited a while and finally a bus came but it was so full, and people still kept getting on.  We took a motorcycle cab which ended up being quite the colorful back-roads experience.  That cost 20 Yuan but was worth the extra $2.
We are winding down in Beijing tomorrow.

Trying pigs feet

Shibao Zhai Pagoda

Today is our last day on the ship, it is amazing the stuff the dam lost.  I am really glad we saw the old China... the small boat ride to go up the river to see the hanging coffins, the trackers tracks, the human coal workers... all lost.  1300 archaeological sites.  Gone forever. There are still beautiful farms up the hills, but not like before with the cute homes/buildings and the farmers who had been there for generations.

The cities that are relocation cities have no history. 1997 apartment buildings that look like they are 50 years old is all.  Many are empty because the young have relocated themselves to bigger cities for more opportunities

Janell and Lauren are working on music video.  Janell chose a song and she made up a dance. the dance was recorded and broken into 28 segments. they transferred this to an ipod.  We go to a site, Janell gets the ipod out and looks at the segment, plugs the music into her ear and does that segment.  Then they get back and render it, putting it together.  One song, one dance, many Chinese locations.  Kind of fun quest.  We are always looking for scenery... fish markets (ben wanted her to jump on a small fishing boat..... no) temples, interesting backgrounds.  People stop to watch and it has been fun.

We stopped at Shibao Zhai city. There was a pagoda built in the 1600's on a hill, making steps so they could get to the temple on top of the hill.  After the dam, the water came up to it so they built a suspension bridge to it from the heightened city.  Now it is not so high.  We climbed the pagoda.

 Lauren bought some drawings from a local artist for 3/100 Yuan about 17 dollars.

Janell at the locks

Janell dancing

Climbing the pagoda

At the pagoda

At the pagoda

Lauren buying art

3 Gorges Dam

Janell and I did some Tai Chi this morning with the ship's doctor.   We had our first shore excursion, the Three Gorges Dam which  is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world.  We came to the Yangtze river about 15 years ago before it was finished and now it it complete.  I feel lucky to have seen it before. (1300 archaeological sites have  been submerged) Now it is incredible what they have done to try to tame the Yangtze (btw the Chinese call it the Long river, just a small section is the Yangtzee and they don't know it by that name.  I can vouch for that as I have said it several times and no one knows what I am talking about.)
We toured the huge dam and have the Panama Canal to compare it to and this is massive with a two way lock.  One for going up and one for going down and a huge elevator will be working next year for smaller vessels. it has not lived up to it's promises and has displaced 1.5 million people.