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Published: October 12th 2010
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Bird's Nest
The Olympic statium as view at night, in the rain. Oct 8-10 On tour in Bejing. Still the smog is horrible. The building across from is very hazy. Visiting all the land marks has been interesting. It is the sheer immensity of them that is amazing. The Great Wall of China was yesterday. We climbed to tower #11 but again, because of the smog we didn’t really see a lot.
Then last night as we looked at the Birds Nest and the Cube…through a dark night and heavy smog, then it started to pour on us. The tour was cut short after dinner and we returned to our hotel.
Oct 11. Just woke up and looked out the window. There is a city out there! Maybe today we will finally see Beijing. I hope it is as attractive at I think it might be. There are gardens everywhere but we haven’t really seen them yet. Now, off to breakfast and another day of touring.
So , we are finally done for the day and everyone is feeling the stiffness of climbing the Wall yesterday. But what a beautiful day today. As I suspected, Beijing is a very pretty city. Lots of gardens, fancy buildings and colorful light displays.
Great Wall of China
Looking down, through the smog It is a shame we couldn’t have seen this earlier. But thank goodness for the sunshine today as we started our day at the Empress’s Summer Palace. This was the summer home of the Dragon Lady, mother of the last emperor. While there some VIPs came through. They arrived with a motorcade of security people, they had at least 4 body guards and the Chineese military accompanying them. The car was flying the Swedish flag. It was a man and woman who got out and then toured the grounds. Each time they came by, everyone had to get out of their way.
After the Palace we went on a rickshaw tour through a hutong village where we stopped for lunch with a local family. This was probably our best meal to date. A hutong village is the old style housing of China with it’s court yards and narrow streets. They are being torn down all over China to make way for modernization but this section has been saved to remember the old ways. People still live and work here.
Our next stop was to take in Kung Fu show. It was a performance about a young boy reaching for his
Great Wall
Taking a break goal of ‘enlightment’. Great show.
After dinner (yes, we seem to do a lot of eating) we walked through the night shopping district. Big, big bucks in this area, as well as a street food market.
Now to bed and up early to get ready to leave for Xian.
Oct. 12 Xi’an
We left Beijing today and are now in Xi’an. The day has mostly being a travel day - bus to the airport - flight to Xi’an. Once we arrived here we headed for the Provincial Museum which was quite interesting. It cover the early dynasties of China. From there, to our hotel, dinner, and an early evening for all. The hotel is quite nice, I could get used to this style of living.
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Darlene
non-member comment
It looks so incredible! Love the photos you all look as if your having a great time and getting lots of excercise. Thinking of all of you often things are status quo here.Keep enjoying yourselves. Love darlene