Today was very cold but sunny for our Beijing touring. We started out early at the Summer Palace. The Palace was where the Emperor and family stayed when it was too hot in the Forbidden City. I think it is one of the most beautiful places in the world. One of my favorite things is the long hallway along the bank of the lake. Each part of the ceiling and walls is painted with separate pictures. I'll try to attach some photos. The hallway is very long and each segment has many, many pictures, inside and out. The detail is amazing. Some are traditional Chinese paitings of flowers others are involved scenes of people. In one section a nice young art student showed us some of the pictures the students were working on and we bought a dragon picture painted on silk. It was so cold the lake was frozen. Mackenzie and Veronica slid along the stream under the footbridges.
After the Summer Palace we went to a silk factory and watched the process of making silk. We saw the silk worm cocoons and how they have 1 or 2 worms in them. If it is a double cocoon the make stronger, coarser threads for quilts. A single worm cocoon is soaked in boiling water and the worm extracted and used for medicine. As they soak the thread separates and 8 threads are joined together to make a single silk thread to make into cloth. We were able to help stretch the quilted thread in the layers they use to make quilts. The threads are very strong and stretch.
Next we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tiananmen is the plaza in front of the Forbidden City and the government buildings. The Forbidden City is called that because only the Emperor and family and selected others could ever enter. Commmoners were not allowed. There are 9,999.5 rooms inside. The city took 50 years to build and another 30 before that to plan. Under Feng Shui, a house should have water in front and a mountain behind a house, so the City has a moat. The mountain is largely man-made from the diggings for the moat.
My favorite part of the Forbidden City is the detail in the artwork along the buildings and the delicate figures guarding the roofs. The only words that I can think to describe them are gargoyles, but they are far too delicate for that. A German friend I had as a child had something similar she called a "roof rider" but these are very detailed, delicate and symbolically watching over the palace.
Next we went to the Temple of Heaven. You have probable seen pictures of it in Chinese restaurants. It was used only twice a year by the emperor for spiritual occassions. Even the empress could not enter. Now it is a park. The long hallway was filled with elderly chinese, singing, playing instruments and playing cards. One group crowded up to the next, with the singing and talking and playing competing and merging with another. Other elderly people were doing exercises on the lawn. It seems like a happy place for retired people to make friends and be involved.
It was a long and cold day but quite interesting. Beijing has changed a lot since we were here in 1999. There is a lot of construction for the olympics and many more people appear to speak English. Taxi drivers have to know 200 sentences to work during the olympics. We saw the stadium, known as the birds nest and the bubble for water sports. the logo is interesting - it is based on the character for beijing but looks like a running person. They are clearly proud of that the olympics will be here.
Tomorrow - the Great Wall - which interestingly is known as the "long wall" in chinese.
