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MING’S TOMB:
Monday (June 28th) we toured Ming’s Tomb, which is where several of the emperors of ancient China are buried. Unfortunately you cannot view the actual tombs, but you can walk through several buildings, one of which is over 500 years old with no renovations. There are very few Chinese buildings this old that are in their original state because most buildings were made of wood and have burned (like the Forbidden City).
GREAT WALL:
Monday (June 28th) we also got to visit the Great Wall. I was expecting to be disappointed in the Great Wall; I thought we would find a rather simple looking wall overrun with so many tourists that it’s impossible to move or breathe. I was wrong.
As you are no doubt aware, the Great Wall was constructed across China hundreds of years ago to ward off invaders. It is one of the 7 wonders of the world and can be seen from space. The first thing you notice as you approach the Great Wall is the terrain around it. The land is extremely mountainous, rocky, and undeveloped. This was by far the most rugged area of China we have seen; in fact, it
was the only place in China we saw that was not massively industrialized. As you look through the pictures, take a look at the mountains and land around the wall. It would be unbelievably difficult to build a wall through such a rugged area even today; the fact that the Chinese built it 700 years ago is absolutely astounding.
Walking on the wall itself was pretty incredible as well. Despite the tourists (and there were not nearly as many as I expected), and the vendors selling shirts and trinkets, you actually feel as if you are walking through Chinese history. It’s difficult to explain the feeling, but ask anyone who has walked along the Wall and they will tell you it is a really amazing experience. There is a reason it is one of the 7 wonders of the world. One more note about the Great Wall- the photos are a little deceiving: The slope of the wall is extremely steep in many places, and the handrails are truly a necessity.
SUMMER PALACE:
Tuesday (June 29th) we started our day by visiting the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace is, like many of the places we visited in Beijing,
tied historically to China's emperors over the last few centuries. Now it serves as a tourist area and a park as well; the palace is on a lake and the entire area is quite beautiful.
2008 OLYMPIC STADIUM:
Our next stop on Tuesday was the stadium that hosted the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. I'll talk about the Beijing Olympics for a moment before going into the stadium itself.
The Olympics of 2008 were monumental for the entire country of China. Hosting a world gathering in the country's capital represented the shift in policy that has occurred in this country in the last decade; it highlighted the change from closed-off communism to an open free market that welcomed foreigners. Hosting the Olympics was China's way of showing it wants to be considered among the elite nations of the world.
Of course, the Chinese government did a great deal to beautify the city of Beijing and even the entire country. People were banned from driving on certain days to improve the smog, grass and trees were planted everywhere, and horns were banned within the city. Many of these changes became permanent. For example, the country's infrastructure was greatly upgraded.
Massive new highways, overpasses, railways, and buildings were rapidly constructed. One such was building was the "Bird's Nest," an elaborate stadium that looks like a bird's nest and seats 100,000 people. Its a pretty cool building architecturally, and we were able to walk on the same track the athletes ran on. If you watched any of the Beijing Olympics, you will probably recognize this building.
OLD BEIJING:
Our final stop Tuesday was a rickshaw tour of an older section of Beijing (A rickshaw is a small 3-wheeled bicycle with a carriage on the back- see the pictures). Old Beijing was pretty interesting and we had the chance to go inside a traditional Chinese house. The mother of the family that lived there told us a little bit about the home and her family's lifestyle through a translator. Many of these homes are now government owned, but this particular family had lived in this house for over a hundred years. 4 generations presently live there, and there are separate dwellings for each generation that are separated by a courtyard. There was also a small kitchen and a living room with a ping-pong table. It was certainly an interesting experience, but
I'm not sure how authentic it was. It had a very touristy feel to it.
THE END
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