We started the day with the tour guide at The Forbidden City. Obviously because of how commercialized it has become, the Forbidden City is no longer Forbidden, though it used to be when the last Emperor was still alive. Now it is visited by so many tourists that it doesn't seem off-limits to anyone anymore. Even Starbucks had a short stay there, though after a bit of controversy they were replaced by a traditional Chinese tea service. We were very luck with the timing of our visit to the Forbidden City, and not just because Starbucks had already left. Before the Olympics, they had been renovating the city with new paint, and even put in real gold to make it look more like the original. Then during a little bit after the Olympics, it was too crowded to get good photos. So I think our timing was great.
The Temple of Heaven was actually more interesting to me than the Forbidden City. It was built by an emperor as a way to worship the God of heaven. Its roofs are painted in blue, representing the God of heaven, and had various sections. The most famous part (thanks to the Olympics commercial) looks like a wedding cake because it was a stack of circles, the biggest on the bottom and the smallest on top. The ground level was where the commoners could worship, the biggest rung for the nobleman and high ranking officials, the second biggest for the Emperor's family, the second smallest for the Emperor, and the smallest for the God of heaven. No one was allowed to step on the rung above their station, not even the Emperor. Now a days people are allowed to walk right up to the top that was once sectioned off only for God-- which I find disrespe
ctful, even though I enjoyed knowing that I could stand where an emperor once knelled. In another part of the Temple of Heaven was a wall of echoes, similar to the ones found in Granada and Segovia (for those who have been on the Barcelona Program's tour of southern Spain). If you talk to the round wall, your voice will be carried all the way around. Nowadays, the temple of heaven has been transformed into a park populated by local people who dance and perform for fun (at least I didn't notice any hats on the ground to put tips in). It was amazing to see all these average people performing for fun and not being too serious about their craft. Another amazing seen to see was the line drawn through the Temple of Heaven for the Olympic marathon runners to follow. I now get to say I ran in the same spots as those people did.
The Summer Palace is even a wonderful place to see in the winter. I would almost recommend that if you have the chance to see it twice, go once in the winter and once in the summer. In the winter you can appreciate it more for its art and architecture, because you won't be too distracted by the flowers. Then when you come back in the summer (as we hope to do), you can appreciate the flowers. The Summer Palace has a long corridor (the longest in the world) containing thousands of paintings, making it almost more of an art gallery than a corridor. outside the corridor there is a stone pathway running parallel to it. Even the stone pathway has a bit
of art in it. As we were walking on it, I started enjoying the simple designs in the pathway, thinking how great these ancient designers were. They had put all sorts of flowers into it, vegetables, vines, Olympic rings.... After I saw the Olympic rings I became rather embarrassed that I was once again taken in by a modern addition to an ancient sight. However it was still rather exciting to me, like finding the astronaut that is carved into the cathedral doors in Salamanca, Spain.For dinner I had Peking Duck, mainly because that is what you are supposed to do if you go to Beijing and you are not a vegetarian. If you ever had Peking Duck in America, please don't even think it is anything like the Peking Duck in Beijing. There is no way anywhere in America can make it nearly as tender and succulent as they do here. Beijing Duck basically comes with little tortilla-looking rice wraps, strips of cucumber, slices of onions, 3 sauces, and a thing of sugar. The 3 sauces are sweet & sour sauce, plum sauce, and fried sauce. The sugar acts like a sauce because you can put it on your duck instead of a sauce. All the options were amazing, believe it or not, and I can't wait to go back to Beijing to have more!
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