Beijing Tours - Day 1

After a few hours of much needed sleep we were back into the swing of things. Today we visited three different places: The Hutong district, Tian'anmen Square and The Forbidden City, and an authentic Chinese Silk Factory.

The Hutong district: This is a district where people still maintain the culture of China from hundreds of years ago. This is where court officials and military leaders and upper class citizens lived during the days of emperor reign. We visited one house that was maintained very nicely by a man named, Mr. Hou. He lives in these quarters with his wife, mother-in-law, and his son. He inherited this house from his family. It has been in the family for 150 years. George (our CCAI rep and a very good tour guide) said that if anyone would want to purchase these houses today, the cost would be 3 million dollars. These living quarters remind me a lot of the house where Mr. Miaggi lived in the movie Karate Kid. : )

Mr. Hou (on the left) George our CCAI rep (on the right)

Front door of Mr. Hou's house

Mr. Hou's courtyard

Mr. Hou did all the writing on the this door.

 *I tried to upload a video of our rickshaw ride to Hutong, but it was taking too long and not even uploading, etc, etc. Hopefully I can get it on here sometime soon.


Next stop was lunch. George took the liberty of ordering our food for us so that we could experience what true Chinese dining was like. I must say, it was quite tasty and I am slowly learning how to use chop sticks. : )



Mmmm!

 After some energy food we traveled to an authentic silk factory.

Silk factory

learning about the process of getting silk

Cocoons in water being unraveled

ladies pulling out the silk to make a quilt

silk worms

 Of course we had to get a little gift for Lucy and Isabelle here, but I will wait to show that until I can put it on Lucy.

Next was Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City. I was fascinated by The Forbidden City. To think that I was walking where emperors from ancient China walked. It was surreal.

Entrance to the Forbidden City

Inside the Forbidden City

The emperor's throne

All the buildings had  very detailed paintings along the ceiling. I wonder how long it took to paint all this.

Another view inside the Forbidden City

It amazed me that this ancient piece of history is in the middle of a very busy and crowded Beijing. The Chinese people value their history. It is evident in how they keep a place like this preserved and protected. This is all part of Lucy's culture and look forward to telling her about our visits to these places. Who knows, maybe someday we can bring Lucy here to show her in person. Four out of the 9 families that are in our travel group have brought their first child they adopted from China. They are showing their children the culture they came from. Very neat!

Today (Saturday) we will visit another piece of China's history, The Great Wall.

Chinese word of the day we learned: xie xie (thank you in Chinese)