The Great Wall

Saturday, May 31, 2014

We finally made it to the Great Wall! On the way there, our buses stopped at a Jade Factory. Oh, my! What beautiful things!

 This exquisitely detailed ship is at the entrance to the factory

I liked seeing these playful puppies — so different from most jade carvings you see

 One of many chests, inlaid with jade scenes

I fell in love with this bowl!! Unfortunately, I think the price was somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000.

At the Great Wall —

 

Other tourists at The Wall

 

This is the entrance to the ladies bathroom

 People buy these wooden flags (?) — not sure what to call them — and write on them their wishes or their troubles and then hang them on the trees for what they call good luck.

And, who would guess you can buy corn-on-the-cob at the Great Wall of China!!

First Day in Beijing

Friday, May 30, 2014

The Fun for Less tour people have done a great job booking us into very nice hotels on this trip. The table below is in the lobby of our Beijing hotel. It is not only beautifully carved (and enormous!) but the top of the table is inlaid with eight different, hand-carved scenes, all made of jade.

Today's sites included Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Summer Place and the Temple of Heaven.

 Soldiers we saw near Tiananmen Square

 Tiananmen Square is massive!!

Mao's tomb is on one side of the square

Our next stop was the Forbidden City. It's difficult to describe how huge it is. There are 9,999 rooms among all of the buildings there. (The emperor who built this is, said to have had 365 wives and they each had their own chamber. This would have been a luxurious life for most women of the day. The only downside was that whole being buried with him thing, once he died.)

For all of our time in China, our guides told us to be "sticky rice" and stay together — don't be "loose noodles." Well, in the Forbidden City, Bob decided to be a loose noodle and got separated from our group. He ended up exiting the grounds and then couldn't get back in. It took a while to reconnect with him!

There are more than 100,000 visitors to the Forbidden City every day.

 Entering The Forbidden City

 Approaching the Palace

 Not a very good view of the emperor's throne

 Side buildings

During the hot summer months, the emperor and his entourage traveled across the lake to The Summer Palace — located on an island in the middle of the lake.

 Our transport to the Summer Palace

 View of the palace from the lake

 Entrance to palace (I can't remember why, but we never got to actually go inside the palace)

We stopped to say hello (Nǐ hǎo) to these adorable children.

Our final stop today was the Temple of Heaven. This is a beautifully tranquil spot where the emperor would go once a year to contemplate and plan for the future. Because it was late in the day when we got there, the buildings were already closed for the day, but, we enjoyed being on the grounds.

 Outside the Temple of Heaven

On the grounds

 Lots of locals now come here to visit, play checkers, and relax

 This quartet was having song practice

Close up of the street sweeper

Our last stop today was to a silk factory where we got to see how silk is made, start to finish. . .

This evening, they surprised us by taking us to a TGIFriday's for dinner. After two weeks of eating almost nothing but Chinese food, that steak and fries tasted wonderful!

Chongqing and Surrounding Areas - Pandas/Stone Carvings/Farms

I never imagined it would take me this long to record our trip to China and Bali! We've been home eight months and I still haven't finished!!

29 May 2014
Chongqing is the largest city in China. I think our guide, Ellie, said there are 30 million people here. She also said that if you drive across the city from east to west, it will take you six hours.

We left the riverfront and rode to the zoo, arriving just as it opened for the day. Although, like most of our days in China, it was cloudy and overcast, the rain had stopped, so we enjoyed seeing the Pandas on display. (We were told that since the Pandas are not always "out" on display, the tour company we were with crossed some palms with extra cash so they would offer the pandas a morning snack - otherwise, we wouldn't have gotten to see them.)

 The zoo entrance is grand and has beautiful carvings, etc

 We saw 5 different pandas (but these pics all seem to be of the same one.)

Many people here gather in public places, such as the zoo, to practice Tai Chi each morning. It was fascinating to watch them. (These are two of the groups we saw in different parts of the zoo.)

After leaving the zoo, we drove a couple of hours outside Chongqing to a World Heritage site called Dazu (which means big feet.) It is home to many oversized stone carvings — carved into the mountainside. The carvings are about 800 years old and depict Buddhist teachings. There was LOTS of walking at this site.

 Part of the walk toward the formal entrance to the carvings site.

 Approaching the formal entrance.

 Standing inside the formal pagoda entrance.

 The public restroom at this site was one of the most beautiful we've seen.

 But, there were still no western-style toilets.

A view of part of the walk from the entrance to the rock carvings. . . Did I mention there was LOTS of walking at this site??

 Some of the stone carvings. . .

When one emperor came to power (during the last century), the monks here covered all of these works with earth so they wouldn't be destroyed (because of their religious nature). It was many years before they could safely be uncovered again for public view.

After we left Dazu, we stopped not far away and visited a farm. These typical Chinese farms looked more like large family gardens to us. The people live in very simple circumstances and I wondered at them being willing to have their privacy invaded by groups of people on tour buses. I wondered if they were compensated at all.

This farm was a series a connected small houses with farmland around them.

 The farm

 The kitchen

The kitchen was separate from the house and I wasn't sure if it was shared by more than one tenant or not. It was hard to tell. A few animals were kept in the back, behind the houses.

These photos were all taken of them in their main living area. Even with these meager circumstances, though, they each had a tv and a computer in a side room.

(Note the satellite dish)

And then, there were the beautiful children!

There are mountains all around Chongqing and Dazu but, with the overcast weather, we didn't get great views.

We rode the two hours back to Chonqing and had dinner at a nice restaurant there. After this many days of Chinese food, though - we look forward to the time when we can eat a meal that isn't Chinese.

Then, we were off to the airport for our flight to Beijing, our last stop in China. It looks like we won't get to our hotel in Bejing until about 1 a.m.