Beijing Sites

Today was our big day of travel, so it began with a huge hotel breakfast buffet. They have everything from Western foods to Chinese foods like dim sum and congee, which I tried. There must be 40 dishes there! 

We left the hotel at 8am for an hour drive to Badaling, one section of the Great Wall of China. David explained the history of the Wall and we looked over Jasper's dynasty chart on the drive up. Once there we joined the crowds of largely Chinese tourists to scale the wall.  Not much of it was easy going. Either you were going up or thinking about how to get back down. We went up the steeper left side because the right was a sea of umbrellas. The Chinese women use parasols rather than sunblock to protect their skin, but that get tough in tight crowds. 

 We climbed through a few guard towers. Everyone was sweating. My Keen shoes were the perfect choice (I did only pack 2 pairs of shoes in the end). Going back down, my legs were pretty shaky. Jasper was just fine, of course. I'm so thankful I was not a soldier stationed on that wall!

 Then we drove back to Beijing, passing some small scale honey farms and stopping for lunch on the way. We went to the Summer Palace, which was built in the mid1800s as a cooler getaway for royalty.  This is a temple at that complex.  David had some neat explanations about how this site was designed carefully as a park or garden, with curvy walkways so that you would come upon beautiful views suddenly, as if they were a surprise, rather than seeing them from a distance. 

 This little baby shows how the Chinese avoid using diapers. Most little ones just wear an apron type outfit or something like this with a big slit in the backside.  I've heard they train the babies to go on command so there aren't any surprises. I haven't seen that yet.

 We left the Summer Palace and drove through Beijing, stopping to admire the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest from the 2008 Olympics. 

Then we went on to a pretty amazing acrobatic show. There were women twirling umbrellas with their feet, 8 men riding motorcycles in a metal cage (I thought 3 was too many, but they kept adding!), a man balancing on one hand 20 feet in the air on top of stacked chairs, women balancing on bicycles (like in this picture), and other strong and agile people.  Pearl knows we sometimes watch shows like this at the once Chinese buffet in York, but this was a little scary because it was live. Jasper said "Wow" about a hundred times.

Then we had dinner at a local place business people go to. We had Peking Duck. I learned that Peking was the Cantonese name for Beijing, and since Westerners first accessed China through Guangzhou/Canton in the south, they learned the Cantonese name of Beijing first. But the name of this city has switched a lot as different leaders have used it as a capital or moved elsewhere for a while.  I also learned I am not crazy about real Peking Duck. But we have feasted all day, so I haven't been genuinely hungry all afternoon and evening.

Tomorrow we have our last day of touring here in Beijing, then we travel to Hohhot on Sunday, and Monday will be the big day when we first meet Ruby.  Let's pray that meeting goes smoothly!