Our First Full Day

Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests

(Our tour guide Emily and Me)

Standing on the Heaven Stone

on the Circular Mound Altar

Hmmm....Duck Soup!

Hostess From Our Lunch

Giant Panda at Beijing Zoo

Entrance to the Summer Palace

Longevity Rock

Emperor's White Marble Boat

It is now 6am Friday morning and I figured I better update the blog as we will soon be leaving for the day on more excursions. Yesterday started off on a good note as we were able to successfully use Skype to talk to Lexi and the boys. The audio and the visual worked very well and it makes us feel like being gone from them so long will not be quite as painful. We connected with our next guide Emily, who met us in the lobby of the hotel and had a driver waiting to take us to our first tour of the day. The first stop was the Temple of Heaven. It is a large park like area (675 acres) built in 1420 by one of the emperors. It mostly consists of trees and gardens with significant architectural structures in the middle. It was originally built exclusively for the emperors and their families to enjoy as no one else was allowed on the grounds except during special ceremonies. Today the park as many locals and tourists with the locals mostly made up of retired individuals because many of them live in this part of the city. As we walked in there were large groups of people enjoying different activities. Some were dancing ballroom style, others were doing some type of group exercises and many were sitting along a long corridor playing cards and other types of games. There were several street performers that were mostly signing and they had quite the fan base. Are first stop was at the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests and this was pretty amazing. Here the emperor would come to thank heaven and various gods for good harvests. We then made our way to the Imperial Vault of Heaven where the various tablets for the ceremonies were stored and then finally ended up at the most sacred place in the temple complex, the Circular Mound Altar. This three-tiered marble terrace represents Man, Earth and Heaven. Here the emperor prayed and offered sacrifice before consulting Heaven on how best to conduct affairs of state. He stood on the stone at the center of the uppermost tier and prayed to Heaven. This was a popular picture spot so I have included a picture of Lila and I standing on the very stone.

We then were taken to a local restaurant for lunch, we were led to the basement of the building, almost a cellar type atmosphere. Our meal was prearranged and it consisted of stir-fried vegetables, duck soup, a chicken dish resembling sweet & sour chicken, a beef dish and rice. We also received some hot Jasmin tea as well as a soft drink (no ice in the soft drinks...no one in China puts ice in their beverages). We ate some of the meal but frankly it just wasn't very appealing. We had the waiter take our picture and we also snapped a photo with one of the hostesses who was all decked out in traditional garb. Don't ask me the name of the place but I did take a picture of the sign out front so my Chinese friend Jack Wang can translate when we get home.

Next stop was the Beijing zoo to see the Giant Pandas. You don't get to see this many Pandas in one place very often so we enjoyed visiting the zoo. They still had extra Pandas on exhibit as they were added back during the Olympics. We had a short stay at the zoo and only paid to see the Pandas. The Henry Doorley Zoo is much nicer but I did not mention that to our gracious tour guide.

Last stop was the Summer Palace, which would have been much more enjoyable if we were not tired and cold. We were thinking to ourselves, I bet this is a nice place to visit in the uhmm...summer. This is a very famous place in China as the emperor and his family would spend a lot of time here. The grounds were enormous and this was built into the side of the hills and had a huge man made lake. I am not doing this place justice in my description but I am out of time and need to get this posted. We left the palace and returned to the hotel. Lila found a salon next to the hotel that did pedicures and I went in search of a Starbucks...we both were happy! We finished the night with a good dinner at a French restaurant next to the hotel...I believe it was called Le Cabaret.