Beijing - Day 1

Yes, we really do some teaching in between trips! But we have been surprised at how many scheduled vacations there are.  I guess that's why the school year is 10 1/2 months long. This holiday was for the Tomb Sweeping Day when they go to the cemetery to clean the graves of their ancestors,  take little gifts of food and flowers, and burn money and other miniature paper items that your ancestors may need -  house, car, etc., that ascend up to them in the smoke.
My friend Kris and I decided to travel by bullet train to Beijing, a trip of 4 1/2 hrs. This is probably the biggest crowd we've had to fight through.

We were in a beautiful hotel overlooking Tienanmen Square and The Forbidden City. On our first day we were picked up by Ling, who Kris tutored in English back in Connecticut, and her husband Mike, who drove us to the Great Wall. I'm still smiling here because I didn't know there were ~1000 steps to get to the Wall from this parking lot. (The chair lift is for sissies, right?) Our legs hurt the next day! (Wikipedia said 4000 steps, but we don't think that's true.)

 

 

Some sights on the Wall:

Me on the guard tower

Hard to believe I'm standing on this ancient  wall.

How did they get all these granite blocks up here?

Then on to our Chinese lunch:

One of these fish will be our lunch

Our hosts - Mike and Ling

Starting top L: corn soup, spiced meat, egg/tree leaves, C noodles, our fish, tofu and fungus

We passed by the 2008 Olympic sights, but didn't stop.

Olympic Headquarters

  

On to the Summer Palace of the emperors. I thought it would be one building, but it turned out to be a whole complex of structures

 elaborately decorated and furnished

 in a forest setting, overlooking a lovely lake:

This is called 17-hole bridge (but I didn't get the whole thing)

The Chinese value huge rocks - the more holes, the more holy

And another Chinese meal to finish off the day. Mike and Ling told us we are now true Beijingers because we ate traditional Beijing food: