Wednesday December 22, 2009

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We started off the day with a quick work stop for Deb at the Johnson and Johnson Diabetes Institute in Beijing. The facility was part of a J&J Medical Center to train Chinese medical professionals in the hope of leading to more use of J&J products. We were impressed with the facility and the expense that Johnson & Johnson is putting into China. They obviously view it as a growing market.

From there we moved on to a Cloisonne Factory. The process is a very interesting and labor intensive one. Being that it is the low tourist season, they basically opened the factory and gift shop for us. After we made our purchases at the gift shop, they quickly closed the doors and everyone went home. Prices at this place were higher than Deb paid last time, but our guide assured us the quality was the very best, with more gold leaf. Could be possible, also perhaps his commission influenced his opinion!

Our main stop for the day was the Summer Palace. It was a cold, hazy day so we did not get to experience the full beauty of the Summer Palace, but the upside was there was hardly anyone else there. Our guide said he had never seen it so empty, he said we had "like a VIP tour." We were very impressed with the Summer Palace and liked it more than the Forbidden City. Like a lot of attractions, it was restored extensively prior to the Olympics and I think more was done as the Summer Palace than the Forbidden City. Incredible amount of painted artwork on long walkways and pagodas. It was so surprising that the Summer Palace immediately borders a slum. We were a bit concerned our guide was taking us to somewhere we didn't want to go when we left the van and started walking!

Next we were off to a Tea Ceremony. They let you taste a wide variety of hot tea in the hopes that you buy either tea or tea cups from them. Given that it was a cold day, we enjoyed the demonstration and hot tea! We bought a tea cup that changes its design from a dragon to the great wall when the cup gets hots. Deb was laughing as she left the bathroom here, which included the sign shown in the photo posted today.

We then took a short walk through a neighboring "hutong", which is the word for an old style Beijing neighborhood. This hutong was going through a restoration process and was a combination of dilapidated structures and newer shops and restaurants.

Next to this hutong we saw the Lama Temple, so we made an addition to our plans for the day and toured the temple which is a large collection of Buddhas for Buddhists to pray to. The highlight was a 55 foot tall Buddha which is carved from one solid piece of sandalwood!

For dinner we met a friend of our adoption group who lives in China. We ate at a neat restaurant called the Noodle Loft. We each had a bowl of "One noodle" which was one noodle many feet long spooled into a bowl. Definitely made for a lot of slurping! The walk to and from the restaurant was a bit interesting, crossing some busy streets without a lot of attention to traffic signals by the drivers. Lots of sprinting across the intersections!

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