Started Writing post at  10/4 @ 6:00pm China time and finished 10/6 @ 6pm

Summary of Friday, 10/4

Today was incredibly busy.  We had breakfast at the buffet at our hotel, and it was very good. They had Chinese fare such as dumplings, congee, hot teas, cooked to order stir dried veggies, and American foods like eggs, yogurts, muffins, and then European foods such as crepes.

We met our guide, Effie, after breakfast and she and the driver took us to meet up with another small village guide for the hutong tour.  Hutong ("side street") is a term specific to Beiing that came from long ago when the Mongolians (Khans) ruled the area.  It was amazing to see the tiny side streets and all they contained.  There were vendors peddling different trinkets or foods, and many villagers just going about their daily lives.

This was my introduction to driving in Beijing. I probably shaved off a few years of my life  just today.  I had heard about driving and walking among cars in Beijing, but I wasn't prepared for it.  On these little bitty streets, cars, vans, bikes, and  motorized bikes just pulled right out in front of each other or in front of pedestrians. I was pretty sure it was my time to go to heaven several times. :).  I mentioned to our guide that in America pedestrians have right if way and she replied "not in China".  No kidding. Whenever we crossed the street, we each took a boy's hand and ran.  I have never experienced anything like their traffic and driving with seemingly no traffic laws or rules, but we've only seen 1 small bump up so far. They also constantly honk their horns.  It's a way to say "I'm coming up behind you".  Also people would pass on tiny roads in spaces that looked impossible to go through. The hutong tour was a bit scary in that respect because he would just squeeze between 2 cars coming right at us in a side street.

During our hutong tour, they took us into a lady's house to show us how a traditional Chinese family lives.  She had pics on her desk of other well known people who had visited her home and Henry Kissinger was among them.  She was very sweet and spoke with us through a translator. She lived in a sort of family compound with her 2 sons and their wives.  Their homes were hooked together but each had their own living room, bedroom, and kitchen.  Evidently, this was a very, very nice home for Beijing yet these 3 rooms were all the home contained.  It was so tiny that they had to out their fridge in the living room.  Her husband was an archaeologist and she was a retired accountant.  They had a nice little garden with seating in the middle of the compound.

We saw many types of homes on our tour. You can tell the rank of a family by the number of wooden beams on the front of their home.  Two beams mean a common family (and their roof tiles would also be gray to show they are common).  The highest is four beams which would indicate a high ranking military official lives there.   Many homes, offices, stores, etc had fu lions (guardian lions) guarding their homes (they believe) against evil spirits.  Most homes belonged to the poor and I don't think dryers are very common in China. Most people had their clothes hanging out to dry.

During this tour, we also got to see the drum tower and bell tower of old Beijing from the Ching dynasty.  This is how the emperor would let his people know the time. Every 2 hours the bell would ring and the drums would sound. We climbed to the top of the bell tower via very steep steps and got to view the original  old bell close up.  It was humongous.    It was so neat to view something so incredibly old.

Everywhere we've gone, people have been trying to sell us something.  Everywhere!  (Even outside of their homes).  They are very forceful and persistent. I'm learning slowly to say "no" more firmly, because my original tactic of smiling and saying "no - sorry" invited them to follow us until we eventually had to be firm anyway.

After the morning, our guide took us to lunch.  It was served "family style" as we would say in America.  It was 8 different Chinese dishes, all of which were pretty good.  They had a beef, pork, and chicken dish, veggies, egg drop soup (which tasted sweet and like corn) and watermelon for dessert.  One consistent thing we've noticed is that Chinese aren't big on drinks. They provide one tiny juice glass sized drink of bottled water or coke and then you pay 10 yuan or so for refills and only if you ask.  So we stuck with hot tea for the most part.  If you do find drinks outside of restaurants , they are sometimes served room temp.

After lunch, we went to the Summer Palace. This was the summer home of the emperor from April through October.  It was connected from miles away to the Forbidden City by a man made river.  The palace was very pretty and intricate.  It has beautiful architecture and it has the longest corridor in the world.   It was an outdoor, covered corridor and made completely out of painted wood.   The whole ceiling was painted with original paintings and if we had tried to capture all on film, it would not have fit our camera.  It was so very beautiful, but I would say the Summer Palace adventure was also the scariest of our trip so far.  I have never seen so many people in one place.  Because of the National Holiday (which is the celebration of when their first president,  Chairman Mao proclaimed their new country under his rule), people from all the country visit their capital to see the ancient places important to their history.  Well, many, many people wanted to visit the Summer Palace on Friday. In their culture, there are no "southern graces" of waiting turns or personal space. So for the whole time we were there we were basically swept along with the crowd. It was super, super,  scary, and Effie said it's never that busy except for during National Holiday.  We had a death grip on the boys' hands and they were pretty nervous.   We constantly had someone pressing into our backs and pushing us along. I'm not sure how someone feeble would have made it.  I guess that's why most elderly people were in wheelchairs.

After viewing the Summer Palace, we had 2 options for exit - either walking around a lake or exiting across the lake via a beautiful dragon boat.  We took the boat, and although much smaller, it reminded us of the Dawn Treader.  It was a fun, short ride.  There was one man on there who kept taking pictures of us almost the whole time - just because we are Americans.

On the way home, Effie said she wanted to take us by a silk factory that was an educational center set up by the government of China for foreigners to learn more about silk production.  This was so cool!  They first showed us hundreds of silk worms eating mulberry leaves.   Then they took us to a room to show us the cocoons. They boil the cocoons first, and then open up the cocoons to remove the larva.  Afterwards, they take the cocoon and stretch it out over curved frames, and it's so strong and durable, it does not break.   They take the stretched out the silk from the cocoons and laid hundreds of layers on top of another to make super comfy silk comforters. After that step, it became clearer why the government was willing to let us go through this for free. They then turned in the pressure for us to buy one of these comforters. We politely declined and they took us to a less high pressure room full of clothes, scarves, etc.  We felt the prices were a bit high so we didn't buy anything.

For dinner, we decided to try an completely authentic Chinese restaurant not normally visited by Westerners, but tried it because it was Effie's favorite restaurant.  She recommended their Peking duck. Matt had remembered going to a delicious place in Beijing while here 10 years ago,  but it catered a bit towards Westerners because it included a acrobat show afterwards.  That would have maybe been a better option.  There was not 1 person in the restaurant who spoke any English.  It was called Wisca and it an extremely odd atmosphere.  They sat us on big red, soft sofas. It was decorated very modern, and all in red and white.  They brought us a hot towel to clean our  hands, and served us hot tea.  I can normally tolerate almost all hot teas, even if it's never my first choice if drink. However, this hot tea, none of us could stomach. It was very  naturally sweet and had a strong, nutty flavor.  Fortunately, they brought us picture menus.  We ordered some Peking duck and a chicken dish with rice.  Both dishes had great flavor, but were horrible cuts of meat.  The duck was very fatty and the chicken was in little morsels, but contained more gristle and bone than meat.  No one was a huge fan and the boys ate very little of that meal.  

We were all very tired walking back to our hotel and looking forward to our beds when a friendly looking man approached us asking questions about where we were from and saying he wanted to practice his English with us.  We talked with him for a few minutes and he said that if we walked a few feet with him, he'd love to show us Ellie Kay's Chinese name (Wan Le Jie) in Chinese calligraphy. We reluctantly followed him, and then he wanted to charge us $100 for his art. How naive.....  :). We quickly told him no and then his prices kept dropping after walking away several times until he gave it to us for almost nothing. A far cry from his "$100 because I like you and don't tell anyone else".

We hit the sack so quickly that night.