Beijing Day Two

As noted earlier, it really feels like we have been here much longer than two full days. We have been cramming so much into every day but that's the way we wanted to do it so that we can experience as much of China as possible.

We started this morning at the Temple of Heaven -- a really impressive set of structures. As with yesterday's visit to the Summer Palace, we were all impressed by the beautiful colors and architecture. I have uploaded a few photos that hopefully show this. In particular, I loved the deep blue colors and the gold colors as well as the elaborate patterns and designs. It's really hard to capture on camera -- you really have to see the entire place. The Temple of Heaven was such a large site that we did a lot of walking -- lots of steps! So we are getting our exercise even if we didn't bring our running shoes.

All along the way, there were lots of people trying to sell us various items - fans, hats, Beijing Olympics stuff, etc. I finally gave in and bought Etu a straw hat for $10 Yuan - just over $1. It was the best purchase of the day and she loved it.

As an aside, Jim H. noticed today when we were on the bus that the Green Tea drink that we have all been enjoying (see yesterday's post) has a website listed on bottle. I just went and checked it out and it's pretty cool -- mostly in Chinese but with cool animation. Here's the link: http://www.byunif.com/ if you want to check it out. We really do have to track the stuff down in the US to see if they have distributor. If not, this could be a hit business in the US (but I won't quit my day job just yet).

After the Temple of Heaven, we visited a silk factory. They gave us a tour where they showed us how the silk is made and we got to see women (not sure why no men) weaving with the silk fabric and turning the fabric into yarn. Not surprisingly, this educational component transitioned into the sales portion of the show -- and Rachel and Debbie did not let down our hosts. They both bought some beautiful traditional Chinese outfits for our little ones and also purchased silk bedding. This was exactly at the point in time where it hit me that: 1) I was feeling a big of jet lag and 2) shopping is shopping -- whether you are in Tyson's Corner mall in the U.S. or a silk factory in China. So I was fading quickly. But R is a decisive shopper - so she finished her purchases and we quickly made our way to the next stops -- first lunch at a Chinese restaurant then the Lama Temple.

I was not as into the Lama Temple as I was the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven. Perhaps it was that I was still fading from the travel. But my personal opinion was that it was just not as beautiful a site as the other places we have seen. One thing that cracked me up: they had a huge carved Buddha statue with a sign outside that said that this was the largest carved wooden Buddha in the world (carved from a single piece of wood) and was in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1992. I was sitting there thinking: so the monks at the temple took time away from their heavenly thoughts to be happy about being in the Guinness Book of World Records -- perhaps right next to the guy who ate 50 Nathan's hot dogs in 10 minutes? Etu and I were the only ones that thought this was funny.

R and Debbie had expressed interest in seeing a traditional Chinese tea ceremony (and after the shopping and Lama Temple I was thinking "please, no more"). But this was the surprise hit of the day. We had an awesome time getting a demo of the various types of teas and some of the ceremony around drinking tea in China. Our guide was a lovely woman who spoke great English and had an awesome sense of humor. As a bonus, drinking all of that tea totally helped my sore throat. So I didn't mind the obligitory sales part of the presentation where we all proceeded to buy large quantities of tea. So we're now set tea-wise for the rest of our lives.

We just got back to the hotel and R and Debbie had so much energy that they went out on a walk to see one of the supposedly good shopping streets near our hotel. Those guys are amazing -- not even showing any signs of jet lag and just wanting to experience every ounce of this place. I begged for mercy and was spared having to go along on this excursion. So I'm relaxing in the air conditioning of our hotel room. When they get back, we'll try to find a spot for dinner. We are all looking forward to seeing Scott and Elaine tonight -- they should get in around 10:30 p.m. local time and we'll try to meet them at the hotel. Hopefully their flight was as smooth as ours. Ok - time to get some rest. More later.

J.