China 2007: Day 3

Early the next day, we were loaded up with a suitcase full of tea for our various aunts and met with our tour group at the Temple of Heaven. The Temple of Heaven was built by the Ming Dynasty to pay special homage to Heaven. Inside the Temple of Heaven is a huge park where local Chinese exercise and hang out. Mostly with a lot of older Chinese.

We got to see several groups practicing various styles of Tai Chi. Here's fan Tai Chi.

Here's Sword Tai Chi.

Then there were folks who did calligraphy, I wish I knew what they were writing out. This was all done with a type of sponge mop and water.

After a while Ji-Eun and I started trying to take interesting photo shots. You can only have so many peace sign poses. So I introduced Ji-Eun to these jump shots, which she really enjoyed doing, and no we didn't care that everyone else was looking at us like we were crazy. Oh and you can see the suitcase that was full of tea beside her. ha!

After much walking we finally got to the temple. Where I did my jumping pose. Did I mention that the Chinese have HUGE buildings?

We then got back on the bus and headed to some place where we got to ride on the bike taxis...

...to go see a man who was a Cricket fighting champion?

Yeah, I don't get it either but hey, it was a definitely UNIQUE experience.

What I thought was funny was how part of the tour was to show the Koreans how the Chinese was a bed culture. This was somewhat interesting to the Koreans, as Koreans typically sleep on the floor due to the floor heating system. My cousin just shrugged her shoulders as her family has beds too.

At some point we ended up going to two more of our sponsors, a textile store and a NASA foam pillow and mattress store. zzzZZZzzz

We then went to the Summer Palace, which was most famously known as the summer resort of Empress Dowager Cixi. Now what I didn't know was that this was the place that a Chinese storyteller spoke about when she came to the International Storyteller Center. So I missed out on the Stone Boat that she told her story about. Doh! Apparently instead of spending the money on her Navy like her counsel requested, the Empress built a stone boat to mock them. Well, I guess they had the last "We told you so" when the French came and burned parts of the Summer Palace due to the weak Chinese Navy. ha!

This palace has a man made lake surrounding it. It just boggles the mind how many men must have been used to create such a thing back in the 1750's. Geez! When we were there, it was so old that the Lake was frozen and people were skating on it.

Along the way toward the Palace, I ran into two elderly Chinese ladies who were selling post cards. I had avoided these street vendors before but I have a soft spot for elderly women trying to make a living, so I "haggled" just asking her to go down the equivalent of a dollar knowing full well I could have gotten it a lot cheaper than that but wanted her to have the money anyway. She just beamed, like she couldn't believe she actually sold one and then she went off to tell her friend. Who was also elderly and not in good health, so I also "haggled" with her and bought a packet from her. Then ran off before they could find more friends! ha! Ji-Eun remarked that I was really kind and I told her that I felt better knowing that at least tonight, those two women would be eating dinner. She thought about it and tracked down one of those old ladies and bought post cards from her as well. ha!

Ji-Eun posing on the Long Corridor after we got our post cards from the old ladies. The Long Corridor was a path in which only the Royalty and their attendants could walk, others had to walk beside it. So I made a point to walk the entire corridor. ;o)

Oh and here's a close up of one of the Yellow Jade protective spirits of the Palace Roofs.

Isn't that just so cool?