Beijing Days 2 and 3

Hi families. More about our trip to Beijing. We started the second day ambitiously thinking we could see the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City in one day. Well, we could have, but we would not have seen everything we wanted to see in the Forbidden City, so we stayed there all day. The Forbidden City is where the emperor and his court lived and worked for over 500 years. Common people were forbidden entry hence the name.

"Built from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 square meters. The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture. It was declared a World Heritage Site in 198, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.
Since 1924, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties."

We walked through some beautiful and different gardens, tons of pavilions, peeked in windows and saw some wonderful artifacts. The size and scope of this place is beyond our ability to describe. We have attached some pictures to help, and we hope that it will give you an idea of how large this place actually is.

The next day we started in Tieneman Square - the largest public plaza in the world. It has several government buildings on either side of the square, and the mausoleum for Mao on one end and the gateway to the Forbidden City on the other. There are several statues honoring people who have made a difference in Chinese history there as well. While we were there, there was a floral tribute to the Olympics and some of the historic locations around Beijing. This was really pretty! We tried to get one of the soldiers to hold us for a picture, but had to settle for the one of us in front of him. After that, we headed out one of the old city gates (the walls have been torn down to make room for modern roads, but a few of the gates remain) and posed with an Imperial Lion. He was a friendly sort!

After another exciting taxi ride (it is a wonder more bicyclists are not injured in the city), we arrived at the Temple of Heaven. This complex was built in 1420 (around the same time as the Forbidden City). The grounds are 2.73 square kilometers in area and are quite nice. We would give you a history lesson here, but for more information google it. We were fascinated by the huge incense burners located at several places on the grounds and took our picture by one.

After this day of walking and visiting, we were pretty tired and located an Italian restaurant for dinner. Yes, we know we should have eaten the local Chinese food, but we just did not feel like it. Check out these cool cans of Fanta and Sprite. We loved the labels!

After a great meal, we headed for the street in search of a taxi. We learned quickly to head for a spot where someone might get out of a taxi and then just jump in. Well, actually, you had better run to the taxi or someone else will beat you to it. (Learned that one the hard way!!)

After a very satisfying day, we headed back to the hotel tired and ready for a nice, comfortable bed. Did we mention that the Government had decided that it was time to turn the air-conditioners off? It was kind of cool outside, but our room was really hot and the windows did not open. So that was a different experience!

We will write more later!

Love,
Kermit the Hermit Crab and Funky Monkey

Beijing Day 1

Hi, families. Beijing was awesome, and we got to go to The Forbidden City, Tieneman Square (we even got to see Mao on display in his crystal casket - but we were kind of put out by it), The Temple of Heaven, and The Summer Palace. Wow, some of those places are a lot larger than we thought and took a lot longer to wander through them.

Beijing is very busy getting ready for the Olympics next year, and we saw a lot of construction on new buildings and roads. We passed on eating Peking Duck and were amazed at all the bicycles and the crazy taxi drivers. One taxi driver was yelling at us in Mandarin the whole time he was driving us back to the hotel (no English on his part, no Mandarin on ours other than hello and thank you), grinding gears and narrowly avoiding other cars at the same time. After a few "I don't know's" from us (the rest of our sum knowledge of Mandarin) we just let him rant and rave at us while praying we would make it to our destination. We burrowed deep in a shoulder bag we were so upset by the situation. Miracle of miracles, we made it back to the hotel in one piece.

By the way, we have to break up our note to you on our activities since we can't attach too many pictures at one time.

The first day in Beijing we took a tour to the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall of China at Badaling. Wow! The Ming Tombs are thought to house 13 of the 16 Ming Emperors. One of the tombs has been opened, but they didn't allow us to go through it. The statues on the way to the main buildings were huge. We were perched on one of the large carved stone slabs. The buildings on this property were just a prelude of things to come on this trip, but they never ceased to amaze us.

After a great Chinese lunch, we were on our way to the Great Wall. There are several sections of the wall close to Beijing, but we went to the one that is most popular and has been reconstructed. The construction of the wall is incredible. It is so hard to imagine this thing being built - so much material would have had to have been hauled to the mountain side. The wall is a lot steeper than we thought it would be, too. We had to huff and puff our way up parts of it. She-who-must-not-be-named and Little B had to hold on tight to us in order for us to have our picture made on the Wall because it was so windy and cold. We hated to leave here. We could have walked for hours!

This was a really busy day for us, and we arrived back at the hotel tired and hungry, but we took some time to play with the elephants in the hotel lobby.

We are going to sign off now and will write again tomorrow about the rest of our adventures.

Love,
Kermit the Hermit Crab and Funky Monkey