Beijing: Days 4-6

Alright, after Wednesday, started to get into the real touristy stuff.  It began Thursday morning at about 9 am I think.  We were getting ready to check out the Ming tombs where many emperors have been buried.  It was a misty morning which made the experience even cooler, since we were surrounded by dead emperors.  The buildings, statues, and gateways were amazing.  The place was covered with pine trees also, since they represent longevity. They are evergreens after all.  The Chinese are some of the most superstitious people around.  We were told that just to find this place they searched for years.  They had to find a place with the perfect fengshue.  Mountains in the south block out the bad spirits and then there was an opening towards the north to allow the good spirits to come in.  It was all really interesting to learn about all this.  The Ming Tombs, however, was only stop numero uno on our day of sightseeing.  Next stop. The Jade Factory and some food.

 

Giant Jade Boat

The Jade Factory was great.  They had so many jade carvings and they even painted with jade dust.  Some carvings were massive. Especially these pirate ship looking things and they had carvings of lions and bears bigger than I am.  They also took us past where they carve some of the sculptures.  Many of the artists were making happiness balls that have 9 circles inside that can move freely.  The cool part is that they make them out of one piece of jade.  Then, the guide took us to a room to demonstrate how to tell fake jade from real jade.  The two most common ways to make fake jade is glass and then ceramics.  With glass, if you hold it up to the light, you can see right through it.  With porcelain jade, the light doesn't pass through it at all.  Then the real jade, light passes through it, but you may see some cloudiness from some of the impurities still inside of it.  Perfect jade won't have any "clouds" and can get to be pretty expensive.  After looking around for a while we got to sit down to a great lunch with the Dean and Dr. Bennion.   It was another feast, they just brought out plate after plate of food, and all of it was great.  We talked for a while also, about the College of Business, some of the teachers, and programs and everything.  After we got some food in us we were ready for the next challenge. . .

The Great Wall



It took us about half an hour to drive from the tombs to the part of the Great Wall we were going to.  The tour bus took us to an area that didn't have as many tourists called, Badaling.  Once we left the bus we got some coffee and snacks for the walk, after we got our supplies the students tore off to climb the wall.  Snapping pictures, ignoring hawkers, and nearly falling the whole time, we enjoyed ourselves very much.  We somehow planned this trip perfectly since the trees were blossoming with white flowers everywhere and it really looked great.  The wall itself was incredibly impressive, though not very high, it did run right on top of the mountain ridge almost perfectly.  At some parts it looked like wall back tracked and folded on top of itself many times.  At one point there was 4000 miles of wall and now remains about about 800 miles.  We only walked about half a mile, but at some points we were walking almost straight up on the treacherous stairs.  We went as far as we could until the part of the wall was closed off since it wasn't renovated or anything for tourists. Unfortunately we only had about two hours to explore the wall, I could have stayed there all day, but I guess it was time to get back.  I'm pretty sure everybody fell asleep on the bus ride back to our hotels.  Tonight was dinner on Dr. Bennion.



Din Tai Fung was the place, and it was amazing.  We each got to order two things, with the majority of it being dumplings and pork buns.  Although, we failed to mention that we wanted BBQ pork buns, they were still really good.  Apparently the restaurant is one of the 10 best restaurants in the world somehow.  Which I think they can owe the rankings to their amazing dessert.  Shaved ice.  We got the strawberry shaved ice and it looked like a painting it was so perfect.  The strawberries looked perfect everything was perfect on it, I couldn't believe we were going to eat it. It turned out to be the best food I have eaten in Beijing, it was so delicious.  I was happy for the rest of the night, knowing that I had that in my stomach.

We decided to walk back to the hotel from there, rather than taking a taxi.  The walk was nice and we got to see where the president lived and we passed a lot of very big buildings. When we finally arrived at our hotel it was lights out, everyone was tired from the days activities.

Friday was a great day.  We woke up to sunshine and great Beijing weather.  We went to the Temple of Heaven or the Temple of Good Harvest, which ever one you want to call it.  This place was actually my favorite among the sites that we saw.  It was in a great big park where all of Beijing goes to have a relaxed stroll.  Many retired old folk were there relaxing and enjoying themselves.  I saw alot of circles of old people playing a version of hacky sack, only theirs was made out of aluminum circular cut outs and a bunch of feathers sticking out of it.  They were all really good at it as well, I've never seen retirees move so quickly.  Needless to I would end up purchasing one of these for the right price of 5 RMB.  Still working on my skills.

Dragons, Phoenix, then Clouds



Okay we are walking through the park and everything is really nice, there were alot of people there, then we turn the corner, and basically out of nowhere comes the Temple of Heaven.  It was really massive, and incredibly decorated with dragons and all the little spirit animals. Also at almost every set of stairs are giant marble slabs with carvings of dragons, phoenixes, and clouds, all mean good fortune in China.  Once I walked around the Temple of few times everyone was ready to continue.  We walked down the long path, passing different buildings and shops.  Stretching the whole length of the path is a straight line of marble leading all the way to the most sacred area in all of China.  It was in the middle of nine concentric circles, each with segments of marble totaling in multiples of nine.  I never bothered to count unlike a few people, I just took their word for it.  At the center was a raised portion where you were supposedly able to feel Him.  People have since then traded prayers and worships for photo ops and quirky poses.  It was good to experience something that has been such an important article to Chinese history and life, but after a few pictures we headed back down the long path. 

Grabbed some tentacles real quick



Before we left, we stop inside a little art store that Dr. Bennion knew about.  Inside they sold art pieces that have been painted by students around the area.  Many of them depicted natural scenes, and heroes of China's past.  All of them were well done and I picked up a couple myself, satisfied I went outside to practice some of that feathersack I bought about a blog ago.  Now it was definitely time to leave, tonight we would be on our own to get some dinner, we were all starving.  We finally found refuge at a Japanese restaurant hidden deep inside one of the malls.  The price was perfect and we ate everything in sight.  We knew we would be waking up early tomorrow so we didn't do much after dinner except pack.



Next morning went well, we slept walk to the lobby at about 5 am I think and waited for our taxis to come take us to the airport.  Since we had a connecting domestic flight we parted ways with Dr. Bennion and Brandon (both had direct flights).  We all checked-in, and waited to board the plane, once I was in my chair I passed out, I didn't even have time to turn my Ipod on. I was out.



The Great Wall, In All Of It's Greatness