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Published: July 12th 2009
Since we got in so late on Friday night, we were fortunate to have a late start on Saturday morning. We were back at the same hotel in Beijing, the Jinguo Garden Hotel, and which meant we had the same food for breakfast: an array of Chinese and American cuisine. As we get ready to return to the US and because Chinese 3x a day is getting a little old I opted for croissants and fruit rather than fried rice and dumplings.
Our first stop today was the Confucius temple in the city center. This was really an appropriate stop for a group of educators being that Confucius is probably one of the world’s oldest teachers. Known the world over for his philosophical teachings, he is an inspiration to all educators. He lived from 551 - 479 BC and his philosophy of personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity became part of Chinese values over time. Confucius advocated that “in teaching people, there is no discrimination of class, type, etc. and that teachers should instruct according to the characteristics of the disciples.” It was very profound to visit this temple and see the shrine memorializing someone
who lived so long ago and yet was such a forward thinker. We are following his philosophy today as we strive to meet the demands of NCLB and differentiate instruction for all students.
Lunch was in a restaurant near the Temple of the Earth. The old city of Beijing is laid out with a city wall surrounding (many parts are gone now) and the Imperial Palace (also known as the Forbidden City) in the center. To the four directions around the palace: north, south, east and west are four temples - Temple of Heaven(south), Temple of Earth(north), Temple of Sun(east) and Temple of Moon(west). The restaurant seemed to be crowded by locals and rather a “hot spot” so we had to cram into a small room and put the entire group at 2 tables. The tight eating space, combined with a hot lunch on a very hot and humid day was a recipe for illness. We all barely ate because it was so hot and humid. It is hard to eat hot food (temperature) with a small glass of a luke warm beverage.
After lunch, our last and final sightseeing stop of the trip was the Temple of
Heaven. The large grounds and gardens are laid out to the south of the Forbidden City. The buildings and grounds were constructed following very strict Chinese philosophical requirements. For example, the number 9 represents the emperor and you will find many occurrences of that number such as 9 stairs leading to each level, 9 rings around a building or 9 animals guarding the roof of a pagoda. The square shape represents the earth and the circle represents heaven and many of the buildings and walls are constructed to depict this interaction.
The remainder of the afternoon was free and many members used the time to go the Hong Qiao Market also known as the Pearl Market to make final purchases of souvenirs. Others took the bus back in order to meet June, our custom tailor, because their suit, dress or jackets were ready.
Dinner was at our usual restaurant, a quick walk from the hotel. What made it interesting tonight was that the group was divided into 2 tables: hot and not. Lucy, Matthew and I all opted for the hot table. I didn’t realize that almost every dish ordered would be hot. Wow…they can add spice. We
had a dish featuring black pepper, red pepper, green pepper and chili pepper. We had the awesome noodles with chili pepper oil - dan dan mien. We also had these pancake/dumplings which were incredible. Of course the spicy food required more beer drinking, not such a bad thing
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