This trip was a last minute change. Paula and my original trip had been canceled and the only one affordable one left was China. We decided to go, even though it was the summer after the SARS scare. We rationalized that we had strong and well tested school/job supplied immunity systems. An added benefit was that we would surely lose weight because we were sure we wouldn't like the food. It was going to be a trip way out of our comfort zone.Boy were we wrong - we left all the snacks we had packed so that we would survive and gained weight. It was still out of our comfort zone but well worth it. This trip changed my life and initially put the crazy idea in my head of teaching overseas when I retired. Please refer to years 2006, 2008, and 2011.Trip was to take 13 hrs and 40 minutes and it did. Paula’s funny blue pill worked fine and she slept. I cat napped a couple of times. The passengers were 90% Chinese (or Asian of some sort- we are no good at picking the different nationalities out yet and we got no better even after the trip). The lady across the aisle read the Chinese characters on our visa so that we could fill out our entry form correctly. Another nice Chinese lady in front of us taught us a few words and wrote down some of the IMPORTANT Chinese characters that meant bathroom, internet café (which we never found any of) and restaurant. All the necessities in life!We flew around a big storm cloud which was very beautiful from this the above view. While flying over Northern China we noticed lots of rectangle small communities. It appeared to be farm land evenly spread out with a very strippy appearance. It did not look like American farm lands at all. There appeared to be no central town. There were small gatherings of buildings but they were in rectangle shapes not block. Definitely did not look like American farm land from the air. We met a guy from Florida (definitely a cracker) that was always walking around the plane a real hyper guy. We were shocked to find out that he taught ENGLISH in China. He had very poor language skills almost a hill billy style that included double negatives, and phrases such as “I need to know where the bathroom is at”. He said he was teaching at a technical university. He initially came over because he met a girl on the internet. So don't assume that any Chinese with a 'cracker' accent is stupid, he or she just might be a brain from this technical university.
wandered around and signed up for a massage. Afterwards we went for a walk and stumbled onto the China World Center. It was a big mall with lots of high end stores that could have been in any country. It had Paris, London, Levis, and Legos, stores. The mall also had an Ice skating rink with lots of coaches and little kids learning how to be Michelle Quan. Went to a grocery store in the mall and wandered around looking at the weird food. I bought some water and Coke Light. Paula bought a bottle of wine for 35 RMB (about 4 bucks). Paula says it pretty good but she is almost asleep.We are in our rooms waiting for our massage that we decided to get. We are a little nervous because they are sending up 2 people to take care of us. We hope they understood that we just wanted a nice normal massage. If we don’t write anything more about the message it might have been something we can’t share on the internet. Paula and I were too scared to ask about what to wear during the message so we opted for underwear and the big terry cloth robe the hotel lets you use. We are praying that it is 2 Chinese WOMEN that come to give us our in the room message.
Day 2 – Sightseeing tour of Beijing. We started with the Temple of Heaven. On the way to the Temple of Heaven we walked through a park with lots of Tia Chi going on.The Temple of Heaven is much bigger than the Forbidden City and smaller than the Summer Palace with an area of about 2,700,000 square meters. The Temple was built in 1420 A.D. during the Ming Dynasty to offer sacrifice to Heaven. As Chinese emperors called themselves "The Son of Heaven", they dared not to build their own dwelling, which we call the "Forbidden City" any bigger than the dwelling for Heaven.Temple of Heaven was reserved for the emperor's family to pray in. Their main religion are
Buddhism, Christian, and Taoism. In ancient China, the emperor was regarded as the "Son of Heaven", who administered matters on the earth on behalf of the heavenly authority. To show respect to the heaven, ceremonies for sacrifices to heaven were extremely important to the emperor. The temple was built for the worship of heaven and prayers for good harvests. The emperor went 3 times a year to pray and if he prays hard enough then the crops will be good. He prayed for rain, harvest and thanks to the lightening god, wind god etcLots of squares and circles the design reflected an ancient Chinese thought of "The heaven is round and the earth is square". The number of eves (roofs) and the colors on a building signify certain things. A building with a single eve meant common people, double eaves mean emperor, 3 eves means heaven. Color yellow & green earth Blue – sky and heaven and gods
Musical instruments
While walking out of the Temple of Heaven area we came across an older man painting Chinese characters with water onto the ground. We learned later that this water graffiti was another form of Tia Chi. 
We also took a picture of this 4 star rated toilet sign. We decided to take the hint and use this highly rated public toilet. It did have one sit down toilet which must have accounted for the 4 star rating.
During our ride to Tianamen Square we learned about Chinese life. People in Beijing earn about 1000-2000wyan a month (300$) in Beijing. Beijing used to be called Peking because map makers who were English had not understood how to say Beijing . Li Allan our tour guide has the most popular name in China. He is 27 and married. Allan lives in the suburbs of Beijing and takes the subway to work. He was very proud of the fact that his condo, which he has a mortgage on, had 24 hour hot water, mineral water and 24 hour heat. He and his wife hope to buy a car next year. They have no children but they hope to have 1 later. They are very interested in making money right now. He said most of his friends his age are childless. Children are “too expensive”. He thinks he his fat but he is below average weight of a man his height in America. Americans definitely eat too much junk food. He was also proud of the fact that there were many American Fast foods companies in Beijing. I guess the Chinese will slowly start gaining weight now... We saw fast food restaurants in all of the large cities in China. There were lines in all of them. We also noticed that China was the first foreign place where McDonalds was cheaper than in America. Is McDonalds trying to get the Chinese hooked on junk food? Tiananmen Square is a very large gathering place we saw hundreds of people waiting in a very long line to see Mao's Tomb. Lots of hawkers and picture takers. 1949Atop Tiananmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace) on October 1, Mao Zedong proclaims the establishment of the People's Republic of China. 1966-76A ten-year period which Mao calls "the Cultural Revolution." Since Mao's death, it has often been referred to as "the ten years of turmoil." The period is characterized by power struggles among the Chinese leadership, by the rise of "Red Guards" and "revolutionary rebels" among the populous, and by extensive political persecutions involving all sectors of Chinese society. Deng Xiaoping and many other high ranking leaders fall from power.
We went across the street, really under the street, to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City stands in the center of Beijing. It is protected by high walls and a moat on all four sides and consists of dozens of halls and courtyards. The emperors of two dynasties, the Ming and the Qing, lived here with their families and hundreds of court ladies and palace eunuchs. From their throne in the Forbidden City they governed the country by holding court sessions with their ministers, issuing imperial edicts and initiating military expeditions.In Chinese the Forbidden City is called Purple Forbidden City. "Purple" doesn't refer to the color of the buildings or walls, but has a mythological origin. It is said that the Emperor of Heaven has his palaces in the region of the North Star, of which purple is the symbolic color. The abode of the temporal emperor, therefore, is supposed to have the same color. The Purple Forbidden City was inaccessible to the common people. Even the highest civil and military officers could not enter it without good reason.The Forbidden City was completed in 1420 during the Ming Dynasty. It was the home of 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Naturally it was the scene of many important events affecting the course of Chinese history, including political struggles and palace coups, some of them extremely tragic.After the republican revolution of 1911, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, then still a child, abdicated the next year. But he and his family and their entire entourage were allowed to stay in the palaces. They were finally expelled by republican troops in 1924. The Forbidden City was renamed as the Palace Museum and opened to the general public.
We went through a garden in the Forbidden City. There were many old cypress trees and beautiful rock formations. We went to one of the tourist stores and then had lunch.There were 9999 (not 10,000 because that is supposedly how many Heaven has) rooms in the Forbidden city and it took 14 years to build. It had a city moat which was 32 meter wide and you could boat to summer place. There were lots of turtles. The bricks in Forbidden City square were 7 layers one direction and 8 layers stacked in another direction so that people could not dig under into the square. There were urns for incense, one for each province. There were Vats for water to put out fires and lots of ceramic decorations on the walls.
Paula's first attempt at chopsticks. It was a yummy lunch, forget Paula wanting to lose five pounds. We ate too much. There was shredded dried spice beef, chicken, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, onion, deep fried rice, a spicy peanut pepper chicken dish, and long green thingies which we thought were kale or bok choy. 
We had great tea tasted like flowers. They called it black tea. I like tea! Paula can finally use chopsticks! She thought she was going to starve during the first 5 minutes of lunch but she got to the point where she could pick up a bean. I got so confused and tried to use my chopsticks for the soup (must have been the jet lag). Paula was the only one at the table that did not know how to use chopsticks. (And we thought she was so cosmopolitan) 
Day 2Lama Temple. It was built initially in 1694 during the Qing Dynasty, this building was the residence of Emperor Yongzheng when he was just a prince. However, in 1744 the Qing Dynasty formally changed the status of the dwelling to that of a lamasery, and so Yonghe Lamasery, Yellow Sect, became the national center of Lama administration. Lama Means "teacher" or "superior being". It features five large halls and five courtyards with beautifully decorative archways, upturned eaves and carved details. Each hall has a Buddha. In the fifth hall the largest Buddha is embedded with precious stones and is seventy five feet high and was carved from one piece of Tibetan sandalwood. It houses a treasury of Buddhist art, including sculptured images of gods, demons and Buddha's, as well as Tibetan-style murals.. It had a drum and bell tower which we would see repeated in other attractions. Lots of incense was burned there, very fragrant.
After the Lama Temple we went to the Summer Palace. It was a really nice park/estate/summer complex where the emperor spend April thru August. The Summer Palace is the largest imperial garden in the world. 
We really like the long Breeze way that was ¾ of a mile long. It was painted with many pictures of scenes from South China. The emperor had them painted to represent the gardens he had seen while traveling around china. That was his version of the travel web page of the 19th century.The breeze way was very crowded so we went to walk on the less crowded sidewalk next to the lake. The sidewalk had lots pictures made out of mosaic in them. I thought there were really old until I saw car and plane in one of them.
We rode the dragon boat across the lake for a dollar. Sat next two Russians and Brazilian so there was lots of translation going on – with English being for the dumb ones It is SO Embarrassing.
The initial construction of the Summer Palace began in 1750, commissioned by Emperor Qinglong as a gift for his mother's birthday. The construction took 15 years to complete. It had the name "Qingyi Yuan" (Garden of Clear Ripples) at that time. The plundering of foreign troops in 1860 destroyed most of the buildings, but they were renovated in 1888 by Empress Dowager Cixi, who was said to have embezzled the funds of the Imperial Navy to build the garden. After China's liberation, the garden became a park and got the name Yiheyuan (Summer Palace)..Obligatory Pearl Factory tour the first of many such vender stops. This one offered Pearl Bling Bling. They spotted me as an easy target All of us had a 'tag along salesperson' of our very own to encourage us to spend those American dollars. This was our first experience with bargaining (we got better). I got a couple of necklaces and a set of earrings. Paula began her quest for a pair of cluster earrings (which she never found in all of our visits). But she did get some necklaces for family members.
Allan said that there was a surprise that we were going to the Panda house. Terry our map person whips out this thousand page guide book to figure out where and what the Panda House is. When we looked at the map I noticed a picture of a panda which we discounted because it was the Zoo so we kept searching. We were surprised when we whipped into the Zoo an saw the pandas. There were 3 in their own separate habitats. One of them was sitting a concrete version of a recliner. We just figured it couldn’t be a guy cause it didn’t have a clicker in his hand. They liked watermelon just like Paula. Their outside area seemed real nice just a little ragged looking.
Traffic back from the summer palace was horrendous we had visions of washing our faces and maybe even changing before dinner but the stop at the hotel was just a tease, we were just dropping Terry and Connie off.
Cookie, Katie and Paula went with Allan for a Peking duck dinner. The guides don't eat with us but he would periodically come back into dinning room and try to explain what we were eating. The Rhode Islanders were meeting friends from conference for their Peking Duck dinner elsewhere. Our dinner started with little glasses of red wine which tasted like port. We were instructed to save these for the duck. Next came lots of little lazy susan courses like cold beef with raw veggies (can’t eat veggies), chicken (fried chicken?), fried bean curd which was sweet, dumplings which I thought I would like but it ended up NOT being on the top of my list. Finally the duck came. It was a whole duck and was wheeled to the table. The master carver took his huge, sharp cleaver and started hacking away. The skin juices squirted across the table (gross!). Allan said this meal is traditionally a big deal and only used for special occasions. China is the first country to raise the duck. It is the Beijing White variety duck which was on the emperor’s menu. It is either cooked in a conventional convection oven or the more popular wood barbeque with no door ovens. They use a fruity wood to cook it and the meat does not touch the fire. The ducks are 65 days old and get fed every 6 hours. They pump air between the skin and the meat to make the skin crispy when cooking. The skin was sort of like fried butter very thick, crispy, and fruity sweet. It was definitely not on a low fat diet. You took the pieces of meat and put them on little crepes with thin slice of onion and cucumber and duck sauce. Sort of like a Chinese version of the 'fajitas'. We ate the raw vegetables but didn’t on the second one. Leeks, beans and radish preservesAfter the dinner we went to an Acrobat show. Paula and I were both nodding off. But the parts we were awake for were great.I kept trying to figure out the tricks for each act. There were 2 guys in dragon suit (or maybe lion suit because they were hairy) balancing on a big ball (the trick here is that they were latched together in middle with hook) There were some really flexible girls that looked very young, maybe between ages 6 to 11. In the spinning plate act, I noticed in the wings before they came on stage, that some of the performers had their plates hanging at an angle which meant the plates were glued on. One of the best performers had unglued plates. There were bicycle acts, see saw acts, girls with yoyo string doing dancing around. and lots. of strength acts.x
