CHINA - days 8 - 9

Day 8 -

Ok, so day 8 might just be my favorite day of the whole trip. Maybe tied with day 1 (the Great Wall day). Anyway, this was a good'un.
Mike Hale dropped us off to do the "big 3 tour" which included a tour guide, tour bus, lunch and seeing the 3 biggest tourist attractions in Beijing. (We had a few "surprise" stops as well)

1.The Forbidden City




We learned a lot from our tour guide. From what I remember The Forbidden City was in use from about 1420 - 1911 and there were 24 emperors who used it. No one could come in or out. There was a door that all supplies (food etc.) were delivered to. Concubines for the emperor were selected at around age 14-15 and (I think she said) there were thousands of them. Some never even met the emperor their whole lives. It was like a prison with very nice living conditions.

2. Temple of Heaven





The Temple of Heaven is round and sits in a square base. The round shape represents heaven and the square represents earth. So, it's where heaven and earth meet. The architecture is so cool. It's all wood made without nails. (Yeah, I'm not really sure how that works)

3. Summer Palace



The Summer Palace was built as a "summer get-away" for the emperors. They only had a small garden in the Forbidden City and that's it - no trees because the emperor thought it took away his power by blocking his view. I think it was an emperor in the 12th century who originally built the Summer Palace for his mom's birthday. At some point it was burned by the British and French and the Empress Dowager Cixi (the dragon lady) neglected the Navy and dumped all the $ into rebuilding the summer palace. Which wasn't too smart because then they lost a war to Japan. But anyway, it's reallly gorgeous place. We took a dragon boat out on the lake and the sun was just setting. Ahhhh....
Oh and don't make fun of the dramatic pose. I was just trying to fit in. Chinese & Japanese always make really interesting poses that are so cute and Americans just stand there smiling. BOring right?

Chinese Medicine
One of our "surprise" stops was a Chinese Hospital. (We think it was a gimmick to get us to buy Chinese herbal remedies) Anyway, we listened to a shpeel about how Chinese medicine was better than western medicine and then Chinese doctors came in and took our pulse and looked at our tongues to let us know what was wrong with us so they could prescribe some remedy for us.


I'm looking very serious because I'm learning that I have cold air in my uterus. He prescribed a remedy whose main ingredient was cinnamon - for $72/mo. I decided to just make sure I'm eating a lot of cinnamon rolls. Warm cinnamony cinnamon rolls to warm up that uterus. Doctor's orders.

Relaxing Evening
So, a really, really fun thing about China were the massages. We got HOUR & A HALF MASSAGES for FIFTEEN DOLLARS!!! So, we had one our first night we got there. And with my jet lagged achin body - it felt soooo good. It was fun to all hang out and talk.




Good day right?

Day 9 - Our Last Day

This day was really chill. We did a little of this -



We ate some Peking Duck, ya know since we were there.


And got Shitos (head washes) Ok, this was AWESOME. ($4)


ACROBATS! This was absolutely incredible. The whole time I kept wincing thinking this would be the night something terrible happened. It is all so unbelievable and looks SO SCARY!


Thus our journey ends. We LOVED the company, the history, the massages, the shows, most of the food, and all the spectacular sites. We DIDN'T love the pollution, some of the food, the cigarette guy, the drivers and the "toilets". But like some guy said "Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps and the sleeper must awaken."

So, Good-bye China. Thanks for waking us up a little.