Last Friday night, we took an overnight train from Xi'an to Beijing. I have to say, when we arrived at the train station, I was a little worried about our choice, but the train was clean and we had two full cabins (6 beds for us and 2 beds for our luggage!!!) and it turned out just fine.
On our first day in Beijing, we toured the Summer Palace which was the summer home for the Emperors from the various Chinese Dynasties. Very neat. We took a Dragon Boat back from the Palace to the parking lot which was also really fun. Since it was a Saturday, and the Chinese schools are on summer break, things were really crowded, but we got to see the highlights for sure.
That afternoon, we took a Rickshaw ride and tour of a traditional Chinese neighborhood and house called a Hutong. The particular house we toured belonged to a "rich" woman because she and her family lived in this Hutong by themselves and didn't have to share it with multiple other families. Inside her home there were pictures of her and her husband infront the US Capital building in DC and on the strip in Las Vegas. Our tour guide informed us that traveling from China is VERY expensive so these pictures further confirmed this family was very well off. I have to say is was incredible to see how minimal her house was for someone considered to be rich. They had about 4 small rooms and everything was very old and basic. Nothing fancy or luxury by any stretch of the imagination. It really puts things in perspective for sure.
The next day we toured Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. I don't think anyone else had quite the same reaction that I did, but I have to admit it was AWESOME actually being in Tianamen Square. After seeing it on TV for all these years, and all the world events that have happened there, it was almost sureal to actually be there in person! We tried to google the tank incident from the 80's while we were at the hotel in China (so we could remind ourselves about the details and tell the boys the whole story). I guess it shouldn't be a big surprise, but it's blocked. You can't find any info on that in China. Facebook is blocked too. Very interesting.
The Forbidden City was the palace home of the Emperors of the various Dynasties. Anyone else was forbidden to enter. It's also the place where the movie; "The Last Emperor" was filmed. I'll need to watch that movie again now that we've been there. It was incredibly crowded on Sunday when we had our tour. It would have been nice to have a bit more time and less crowds so we could have asked more questions and the kids could have got a better look into the various buildings, etc. but we definitely got the basic idea of the place. This was also where we had our "15 mins of fame". While we were waiting for our tour guide to purchase the tickets for us, we had various Asian groups come up to us and ask to take a picture with us. Erik and Adam had already had a few photo requests during various parts of the trip. But outside the Forbidden City, we probably had 10 or 15 groups come up and request photos in a 20 min time period. I think once the first group asked, other people started thinking we must be "famous" or important in some manner so it started the trend. Very Funny!
The next day was the Temple of Heaven and the Tea Room for tasting. Even the boys enjoyed the tea tasting and if the tea actually does everything they say it does for you, I'll be drinking it EVERYDAY!!!
