November 21st - Busy Day (Eric)

We woke up much more refreshed today. The hammering and pounding didn't start until around 7am, which worked well, since we needed to get up, eat breakfast and meet our guide at 9am.

Our first stop was the Temple of Heaven. It was an amazing experience. The size and grandeur of it all is pretty breath-taking. As we walked in, there is a long tiled approach to the temples. A bunch of older men were practicing a variety of calligraphy styles with large paint brushes and water on the tiles as we walked by. There are a huge number of variations to how they can write the same character. We stopped to talk with one of them and he wrote something, I want to say US is nice. I will post them later once I finish editing pictures.

There were a lot of retired age people walking around the Temple area. The grounds are HUGE, and it is essentially the temple area surrounded by a park area. People were practicing dance and other activities in the park areas.


[Lily and Mya as we approach the Earthly Mount]

The detail work on the marble and granite was very fine. this was an example of one of the Dragons (I am assuming) off of the side of the Earthly Mount.



Some of the other detail pieces looked like they were cast, but I think they probably represent the originals fairly closely. Since you can handle a lot of this, I would suspect it wears quickly. regardless, the details were very nice.



[Me and Lily stopping for a quick picture on the Earthly Mount, overlooking the Imperial Vault of Heaven]



[Imperial Vault of heaven]

After the Temple of Heaven we stopped for lunch at an interesting restaurant. Midway through lunch, some entertainers got up on stage and performed traditional dance numbers from the area they represented and some music as well. The area is southern China, near Burma and Thailand. The food we had there represented a mix between Thai and Chinese food we would expect to eat in the states. It was quite good.

[Playing the flute, note the fancy mic strapped to his wrist with a sweatband]

[One of the dancers showing some of the dance moves from that area.]

After lunch, we stopped at a market to pick up some souvenirs. I had been asked by a friend to pick up a nice hand bag for her. When I talked to our guide, he indicated there was some level of crack down on the knock off products market. So when we got to the market they didn't have anything there. The booth sellers were pretty aggressive; "Mr. Mr. over here, Polo shirts - cheap", or "Come look at Shirts, shoes, suites,". Pretty much anything you could think of. After talking with one of the stall owners, the convinced me to leave the market and come look at their 'private offerings'.

So Lily and I wandered off with her to her shop around the corner, down a dark hall, and to a random door. Inside they had pretty much any style of name brand bag you could imagine. After about 20 minutes of haggling we agreed on a price and the bag was mine (or in this case Heidi's).

After the market, we stopped in Tienanmen Square. It is the largest public gathering place in the world. They indicated it could hold 1 million people. It's hard to imagine that.

There is a mausoleum erected for Mao in the square as well as the People's Heroes Monument. It was breathtaking.

We had wanted to see the forbidden city and walked over to view it, but it was too late and they were no longer selling tickets. So it was back to the hotel.

[Guards getting ready to retire the colors in Tienanmen Square]

It was a long day of running around. Lily and I dropped in and had spicy chicken and rice for dinner, and then visited with friends until it was time for bed.

Ciao - Eric