We went first to TianAnMen Square where Joe told us about the buildings surrounding it, the Chinese museum, Chairman's Mao's mausoleum, and the Chinese government building. It is so much larger than it looks in photos! We next went to the Forbidden City, so named because it was for the emporer and his family only. It is about 200 acres and has 9,999 rooms. This is the pagoda-type roofs that I saw from our hotel yesterday! The Forbidden City is being renovated for the Olympics so there is much work going on. I really enjoyed seeing it at this time because you can see the old areas that are really fascinating, yet you can see the areas that are done and look new. The new areas are so striking with their vibrant colors and great detail. It is amazing how they keep everything so true to the original. The buildings and museum pieces are breath-taking!
Next we went on the Hutong tour. The Hutong area is an old area of town that is kept as it was. The streets are very narrow, so we rode in bicycle rickshaws. The day was overcast and misty, so the rickshaws were covered with protective covers. What a fascinating look at the "old" China. While here we visited a Chinese kindergarten for 3-5 year olds. There were about 8 children and they performed a dance for us. They were so cute!! Joe says education here costs quite a lot. That is one reason people only have 1 child. There is also the 1 child policy, where there is a large fine/tax for having a second child. We stopped at a Hutong family's house and ate lunch there. Everything we were served was fantastic! I think this was my favorite part of the day! The lady of the house presented me with a bracelet of jade turtles for longevity and good luck. I absolutely love jade and I will treasure this forever!! The man of the house is very well known for his fighting crickets and he showed us his crickets and several articles in Chinese magazines about them.
Our next stop was the Hong Qiao Pearl Market. There Danni picked out an oyster and we watched it being opened. Everyone guessed how many pearls would be inside and I won at 29! We got to keep the 4 largest pearls inside. These pearls were not very large and were irregular in size, so were not considered jewelry quality. We also learned how to tell a real pearl from an artificial one. We saw white, pink, purple, and black pearls - but the pink and purple ones are from China only. These are all freshwater pearls. After this we went back to the hotel and rested for a couple hours.
Joe was back at 4:30 to take us to the Beijing Yuanlong Silk Corporation. We were shown the stages of the silkworm and how silk is taken from the cocoon and made into thread. The single cocoons are made into thread and the double cocoons are made into quilts. It was fascinating to watch them stretch the silk from a cocoon size to quilt size! Each quilt is made up of many layers of silk and can be used summer or winter because of the way the silk breathes. Next we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner. The food here was also great! While eating, we watched music and dancing. At both our meals today, we did not have to order - they just brought us a large variety of dishes.
Then it was back to the hotel. We arrived back at the hotel about 7:30 and Danni and I went to sleep about 9:00. Ryan stayed up to work on his page until 9:30. I woke up at 2:30 AM here (1:30 PM Central time). It is now about 5:15 AM here and I'm ready to take a shower and get ready for breakfast! Joe will be here at 8:30 for our 2nd day in Beijing!!
Ryan has taken hundreds of photos so as soon as he has a chance to go through them, we will be getting them up for you to see!