Touring Beijing - Day one

We met our guide in the lobby at 8:30 am. Our first stop was Tiananmen Square. Since it rained last night, we had a fairly clear day. Tiananmen really is a very large square with people milling about.

The Forbidden City is on one side of Tiananmen. You have to go through three gates to actually reach the Palace. A lot of the Forbidden City is covered in scaffolding. The goverment is restoring the structures with a completion goal for the Olympics. Our guide constantly gives us historical commentary and so we learned a lot. There is a raised bar across the bottom of all doorways to keep the ghosts out. Ghost cannot jump. We dutifully hoped over the bars to avoid bad luck.

There are lions that guard the gates. There is always a female and male lion. You can tell them apart because the male has one foot resting on a ball symbolizing power and the female has one foot resting on a baby lion. Everything is named using the word peace to show the emperor's most important goal. I believe Kim said it took 18 years to complete the Forbidden City.

Kim told us a lot about the concubines. The emperor would have one wife and then thousands of concubines. The wealthy families would send portraits of their daughters to the emperor. The concubines would then have to pass inspection first by the head eunich. The girls would be between 12-18 yrs old and would have to be viewed naked by the eunich to make sure they had no flaws. Then the girls would have to be chosen by the empress. Most of the concubines would never see the emperor because their were just to many women to get too.

There are animal figurines that decorate the roofs. The figurines always come in odd numbers. Odd numbers are heavenly numbers and even numbers are earthly numbers. Nine is the best number and is the imperial number. Only the emperor's building within the Forbidden City have nine figurines on the roof. Maizie has a good birthday because she was born on the ninth, which is the imperial number.

Kim seems very amused by Jeff's height. Kim said that height is a sign of attractiveness in men and so Jeff is very handsome. She giggled when we took her picture next to Jeff and was very impressed when we were standing on a step above Jeff and he was still taller.

We then went to the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace is more artistic than The Forbidden City. There are alot of long stones. The long stones represent longevity. There are cypresses everywhere. Cypress represents love. Our guide took our photo in front of a 500 year old cypress and wishes us love lasting as long as the tree. There is a large man made lake for The Summer Palace. When the Summer Palace was constructed the lake was dug out. The dirt was formed into a hill, Longevity Hill. Kim said every winter the water evaporates and the water has to be brought back in.

Next we went to Beijing Zoo to see the Pandas. I killed the battery in the digital camera so we do not have any digital photos to upload. The pandas do not move very much, but they were very exciting to see.

Finally we returned exhausted to the room. Tomorrow is The Great Wall, The Ming Tombs, a kung fu show at night and one more day closer to Maizie.