Bing-da-la-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding...We go to China!

We were off to China for Columbus Day. We departed October 11th and were thrilled about our first trip out of Seoul. Beijing was calling our name--so we were on our way. We were lucky to have a good family friend living here--so we were able to stay with him in his great house located near the Bell Drum Tower. This is the tower in the picture below. Come to find out, some of our other good family friends were also in Beijing from Houston on a business trip. It was a nice little taste of home for us. We were able to meet up with them for a nice grand dinner on our first night in China. When I say grand--I mean it! The company treated us to all various types of Chinese food. I think we basically tried every food imaginable in China--they just kept brining new dishes to the round table.. It was all delicious--especially the Moutai (liquor--tastes like grappa). It was fun to watch the procession of gambes (cheers)! Of course--a good time was had by all. Thanks Mr. & Mrs. Ryan!
Having an amazing dinner on our first night in Beijing!

The crew shopping in the hotel lobby!

Sunday, October 12th was a day filled with adventure and sight-seeing on bikes. One of our friends had advised us to rent bikes and travle around the city due to the unimaginable amount of traffic. Taxis were super cheap, and the subway system was pretty convenient, but Beijing on bike is the way to go! The pollution here was terrible, and we both could have used masks. We had the bikes for almost 12-15 hours and only paid around $6.00/bike.

Our itinerary for Sunday: rent bikes, Lama Temple, bike around the Hou Hai, Xi Hai, and Qian Hai Lakes, Tia'an men Square, lunch with Clayton, tour the Forbidden City, climb up to the top of Jing Shan Park for an amazing view of the city, explore the Silk Market, and eat dinner on the Qian Hai Lake.

These are the rickshaws/pedicabs that you can take--instead of a taxi ride.
We walked by this small park where we had rented our bikes and heard all of these birds singing. It sounded like one of those nature cds with birds peacefully chirping away. The man below trains the birds. They were so talented, and it was a lot of fun to watch.
D on her bike cruising to the Lama Temple.
Does anyone know the price of tea in China? Brian went in to ask and find out.

B riding his bad blue bike!

Yeah! We found the temle. The gardens and landscape around Beijing still looked goregous from the beautification project for hosting the Summer Olympics.

B standing at the entrance to the Lama Temple (Yonghegong Lamasery). Check out the magnificant colors and painting on all the buildings. It was built in 1694 and was originally owned and lived in by the Qing prince who later became the Yongzheng emperor.

People praying and burning incense. It was our first time to see people worshipping and praying to the Buddha.

You were not allowed to take pictures of the Buddhas inside the temple, but you could take them from standing outside. This is one of the numerous that we saw.

B spinning the wheel for good luck.

This was a neat temple.

The Chinese dragon which is an imperial symbol.

The colors here were amazing for photographs.

Beautiful architecture!

A monk on the temple grounds. Tibetan Buddhism is practiced here.

According to a brochure we have, "Buddhism is the dominant religion in China. It first arrived in AD 64, according to Chinese Buddhist scholars, during the Han Dynasty (206 BC- AD 220). It has played a central role in Chinese culture and history. In China there are three main types of Buddhism: Han, Tibetan and Southern. Christianity first came to China as early as the 7th century with traveling Nestorians. The Jesuits later found their way in the 1670s and the first protestant missionary arrived in 1807. Today, there are an estimated four million Caholics and ten million Protestants in China."

The Temple below (Wanfu Ge: Tower of Ten Thousand happinesses) houses the statue of Maitreya (also known as the Future Buddha--made in Tibetan-style). This Buddha stands 18m. tall and also goes 18m. into the ground. It is made from on piece of white sandal wood, and was listed in the Guiness Book of World Records in 1990.One of our favorite areas in Beijing: Shicha Hai--The Back Lakes. We really enjoyed strolling on our bikes around the lakes: Qian hai (front lake), Hou Hai (back lake), and Xi Hai (west lake). Our friend lived not too far from here in the old hutong area--a network of old houses clumped together in a network with small lanes--there are very few hutong areas that remain in Beijing--The lake area is now are home to restaurants, bars, small shops, and nice villas. These lakes were once used to transport grain from the grand canal to the Forbidden city. Before 1911, in order to live in this area, you had to have ties to the imperial family.

A nice stop to admire the lake. We were so blessed with amazing weather.

Just south of the Drum Tower and off the main road of Dianmen Wai Dajie is a little side alley which is home to very cute and unique boutique shops. There's always a crowd here, but it's worth walking/strolling down.Mom and daughter playing badminton. We also saw a lot of people playing ping-pong.

Ni hao (Hello) said a bird in a cage as I rode my bike by. I quickly got off and sat there to watch this bird. He also said: Hello and mumbled something else in Chinese to me. I was cracking up to say the least. It reminded me of the time in Roses, Spain when B, my dad, and brother were playing a joke on me about this parrot across the street. We tried to get this bird to talk while we were videoing, but we couldn't capture the priceless moment. Below is a picture of Beihai Park which is located in the very heart of the city.
We stopped to break and met Clayton for lunch at a great restaurant with a lot of Mao. It was great to catch up--we all hadn't seen each other since B played Clayton in a Rugby Match back in 2001. The food here was delicious--especially the eggplant.

We made it alive to Tiananmen Square (Tiananmen Guangchang)!

B & D in front of Tiananment Gate, and the famous portrait of Mao. stone lions.

To say the Forbidden City is large is an understatement. It's huge. One could take days exploring here. It is the largest and best-preserved set of ancient buildings in China and the largest ancient palatial structure in the world. Construction began in 1406, under Yong Le, emperor of the Ming dynasty, and it took 14 years to complete the Forbidden City. In 1421 the dynasty was officially moved here. It served as the Imperial Palace for 491 years and has served 2 dynasties and 24 total emperors. It was converted into a Palace Museum in 1925. UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 1987.

Working People's Cultural Palace (Taimiao--Imperial Ancestral Temple). It's located in the southeast quarter of the Forbidden City and was built during the Ming Dynasty for China's emperors.

Check out the floor!

Large Stone Carving

This is the largest stone carving in the palace. It is 16.75m. long, and it weighs more than 200 tons. It is carved out of one piece of natual stone. It was quarried in western Beijing and transported during the winter time by pouring water on the road in order to make an ice road. It was then pulled all the way to the Palace along this ice road. Wow!!

Little Dumbo!

Taking a walk in the Forbidden City park.

Now, that's an old tree!

Dui Xiu Shan

Hill of Accumulated Elegance

We exited out of the north gate and walked across the street to Jingshan Park to climb the stairs for a magnificant view of the Forbidden City and Beijing. Once we arrived to the top, we could see the real monstrasity--The Forbidden City is massive. This park is the highest point in Beijing and for more than 700 years it served the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasty.

The sun was just perfecto!

A view of the Forbidden City and the thick mass of pollution.

A few the other direction--You can see the Bell Drum Tower in the far distance.

Hey lady, you want jeans. Hey lady, lookie lookie...you want jacket. Hey man, you want t-shirt, polo shirt. Hey man, how much you wanan pay? Talk about overwhelming...if you go shopping in China, have a list of what you want to buy beforehand. AND if the clerk says that the shirts is 330 RMB, you say 33 RMB and work your way up. NEVER pay full price for anything in the Pearl Market or the Silk Street Market (Xiu Shui). We shopped for around 2 hours which was complete sensory overload. We never even made it to the floor with all the silk. We ended our day with a nice dinner overlooking the lake district area! +Bike place was open 24 hours...so we could return our tranportation at any time :)--talk about service.

Oct. 13 Itinerary for the day: Visit the Great Wall of China (Badaling section), tour The Summer Palace, and eat Beijing Pecking Duck.

The Great Wall of China (Wanli Changcheng-"10,000-Li Long Wall or Very Long Wall")
We checked the box to seeing one wonder of the world!! What would a trip to China be without seeing this masterpiece that interwines up steep mountains and around curves. It was definitely an amazing site to see. The Great Wall is 15,000 km long and travels from the deserts of Xinjiang to the shores of the Bo Hai (Bo Sea). From a travel web-site we read, "The wall was built in order to protect China from the marauding barbarians to the North, but it never really lived up to its repair bills. Both of the Mongols (who established the Yuan dynasty) and the Manchus (who established the Qing dynasty) bribed and tricked their way through the wall on the way to invading China. Building of the great wall started in the 7th century BC. Qin Shihuang (1st emperor) formed the Qin Dynasty after defeating the warring kingdoms in 221 BC. The emperor decided to connect the sections of the walls that had been built in all efforts to deter enemies. This took 10 years to complete, and not all sections were fully connected. In 206 BC when work on it was complete, the wall was more than 5000 km long. Other dynasties added to this wall to create what is present today. The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) added bricks and stones to the face of the wall. It is said that up to one million workers may have died in the building of it. UNESCO listed the Great Wall in 1987 as a World Heritage Site.

We visited the wall at Badaling which is closest to Beijing. This section of the wall was constructed in 1368 and took over 200 years to complete. We wanted to visit the wall on our own so that we could walk around and enjoy our visit here. If you are on your own visiting this section of the wall, we suggest you walk towards your left first, then walk right to see the other section. All the tour guides take their guests to the right, and you will feel like you are in a can of 200 packed sardines. We took the public Bus 919 from Deshengmen Long Distance Bus Station and paid only 12 RMB per person for a one hour journey.

Check out the steep climb up!

This shows the grade of steepness.

Enjoy our peacful walk along the wall!

Autumn is in the air!

Yeah for China!

Some of this section was crubmling and was in desperate need of repair. We couldn't walk past this point.

To think this wall goes on for 1000's of miles.

We met a nice family from Dallas while walking along the wall.

HUM! Let me rethink our decision on walking to the right section of the wall. 200 people trying to get through one archway. Sardines? I felt like one shoved in a can. We walked for a little while, but quickly got sick of the pushing and shoving.

The mass amounts of tourists. The funniest thing is that people would approach Brian and I and say picture. We thought they were offering to take a picture of us...nope--they wanted a picture with us!! Who knows what web-sites we are on now!

Can you see the cool face in the clouds?

The Summer Palace (Yihe Yuan): It started to rain on our taxi ride there, but thankfully, the weather cleared up a bit for us to get a lovely view of the lake. This is where the royals would escape to during the heat of summer. It's a nice place to come, relax, and take a stroll along the lake walking along the Long Corridor (Chang Lang) to admire the nearly 10,000 painted scenes along the half-mile wooden promenade. It has served as a summer home since the Jin Dynasty. Qing Emperor Qianlong remodeled it for his mother in 1750 to the way we saw it today.

The Chinese are amazingly creative with their floral designs. Check out the dragon above.

Looking up at Longevity Hill. The Summer Palace was built from 1749-1764, but was leveled several times by foreign armies.

Renovations were just completed in September 2006 so all the paintings were very vibrant.

The sky cleared up a bit for a brief 20 minutes so that we could get a quick city glimpse and a view of the Kunming lake. Precious Clouds Pavilion (Baoyun Ge) above has just been rstored and the colors are bright and dazzling.

The really neat painted boats.

The Marble Boat (Shi Fang)

...which they say is neither marble nor a working boat... According to Frommer's Beijing, "Locals keen to blame the Empress Dowager for China's decline during the Qing dynasty, wring their hands and cite it as the symbol of China's demise. Cixi funded a general resortation of the palace using money intended for the Chinese navy, and the (completely frivolous) boat is said to be Cixi's backhanded reference to the source of the funds."

We had to try the Beijing Pecking Duck...so it was off to Da Dong Roast Duck Restaurant. The waitress demonstrated how to assemble the little fajita-like rolls with the traditional cucumber, onion, and sauce. They were delish!

Oct. 14th: Our last day in Beijing. Wow!! The trip just flew by. We still had to see a few famous sights: 2008 Summer Olympic Park, Temple of Heavan, and the Pearl Market.

This was a view of the rickshaws on Clayton's street. He lives in one of the hutong areas of Beijing. "The word hutong originates from the Mongolian word hottog which means "well." There are about 1000 Beijing hutong, and the most famous areas are Sichahai and Nanluoguxiang at Jiaodaokou. From our understanding, this is an area where all familes would live together sharing common areas in their little compounds.

We missed the 2008 Summer Olympics by a few months, but it was still nice to see all the flowers around the city. They transformed the city of Beijing for the show of the olympics. The National Stadium aka Bird's Nest was one of the two main venues at the games. It has the capacity to hold up to 90,000 people. It held the opening and closing ceremonies.

Gate D and D!

National Aquatics Center aka Watercube is where Michael Phelps left his signature on the wall. It can sit around 17,000 people.

Tian'anmen Square is the largest public square in the world. 44 hectares 500 m wide by 800 m long. It can hold up to 90 American football fields. The Monument to the People's Heroes and Chairman Mao's Mausoleum stand on the southern end of the square with the Forbidden City on the northern side side of the square.

The Monument to the People's Heroes is in the picture below.

According to Frommer's Beijing, [Tian'anmen Square] as remained a magnet for politically charged assemblies; the most famous was the gathering of student protestors in the late spring of 1989. That movement, and the government's violent suppression of it, still define Tian'anmen Square in most minds."

Waiting in line to see the Chairman Mao's Memorial Hall where the remains of Chairman Mao Zedong (1893-1976) lies. We waited and waited and waited. After waiting forever and turning the corner to only notice we still had about another 30 miunute wait, we quickly bolted to the Temple of Heaven.

The Temple of Heaven was built in 1420 during the Ming Dynasty. We went here to see the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. This is the place the Chinese would come to convey wishes to heaven. It was very much a sacred place. I just loved the dark blue glazed tiles on the roof of the temple. They are supposed to represent the color of the sky.

Inside the Prayer for Good Harvests:

"The circular wooden structure is wholly made of wood without the use of a single nail or cement. The entire structure is supported by 28 massive wooden pillars, which symbolize 28 constellations in the sky." UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 1998.

Entering into the Temple of Heaven.

We found a great photo op and had a blast with this red door and the amazing lighting.

B!

Jump!

Yipeee!

The Hall Prayer for Good Harvest is a symbol of Beijing. The Temple of Heaven, "Tiantan" is now a park but it used to be where the emperor would go and pray to the gods each year to grant them bountiful harvests. Renovations were completed here in 2006.

Simply gorgeous!

The Echo Wall below is built in perfect symmetry--which allows an echo to travel from one side to the other. We saw another one similar to this in Grenada, Spain at Alhambra.

Pearl Market here we come! We only had 3 hours to grab lunch and quickly do some shopping at the famous Hongqiao Pearl Market. Overwhelmed is an understatment. One floor contained around 200 vendors, and there were 2 floors like this--not only selling pearls but all other types of beads and gems. Who to buy from, who had the best quality, etc.? LAI REN LA (HELP)...We finally decided to purchase from Natalia on floor 3F booth 148-149. AND THE RUSH WAS ON...we picked up our bags, said Good-bye to Clayton...and took a taxi to the airport. Below is the new terminal at Beijing airport.

Zaijian (Goodbye) Beijing. I had no clue that there are around 16 million people living in Beijing and 3 million who are transient. Wow--another big city to check off of our list!

We had one last bowl of noodles at the airport and a pijiu (beer) before boarding our flight!

XieCie (Shey Shey) Thank You Beijing for a wonderful trip!

Video of Olympic Park


In the park around The Temple of Heaven, many locals were out taking dance lessons and enjoying the day.

A quick glimpse at the massive size of Tian'amen Square.

The Great Wall of China at Badaling location

Check out the loud and obnoxious music blaring from the speakers.

Want to partake in this massive crowd? Check out this guy! This is when we said, "Get us the hell out of here!"

Enjoying our bike ride through the hutongs!

A view of the Forbidden City.

Drum to the Beat, Bat the Ball, Stitch, and Drum to that Beat!

B & I were supposed to have a fun-filled packed weekend, but he got called away last minute to attend a training--so I was off to do some more exploring of Seoul!! He'll be back this weekend, and then we are off to Beijing, China for the Columbus Day Holiday. It should be a nice time. We missed out on the Korean Mask Festival this year in Andong Province--maybe we can catch another one sometime.

The Seoul Drum Festival was taking place--so on Friday night, I headed up to the Seoul Forest to check out the performances!! It was the most amazing free concert I've ever been too--packed with loads of great rhythm, dance, and beats.

The Band from Brazil

Amazing choreography on this act

Choi Sori & Arirang Party

They did this dance routine with swords--pretty cool!
This guy is the best brake dancer I've ever seen--wish I could move like that. Our floors would be well polished.
Traditional Korean Dance--Samulnori Jinsoi (Janggu--Korean drum) Performance

10 year old Tiger from Japan on the drums.

"Taiga “Tiger” Onitsuka is a 9 year old Japanese jazz prodigy. He is officially recognized by the Guiness Book of World Records as the “The World’s Youngest Professional Jazz Drummer”. Onitsuka started playing the drums from the age of 5 and performed at a concert in Harlem, New York in 2005 at the age of 7. Last October and November Onitsuka performed at the Yokohama Jazz Promenade and at the 3rd Ginza International Jazz Festival with his band “Tiger, Burning Bright” (taken from: http://japansugoi.com/wordpress/taiga-tiger-onitsuka-japanese-jazz-prodigy/)

Turkish Band IFAK
South American band meets Korean drummers.
Head Ribbon Twirlers : Samulnori Jinsoi
At the end of the performance, the audience all rushed towards the center stage to dance around in a circle with the drummers and performers. It was great to see the Koreans finally express themselves to the beat!
The LG Twins had their last game on Saturday, October 4Th at Jamsil Baseball Stadium. They are always very entertaining to attend. Women sell dried fish outside the stadium/beer/water, etc. It's definitely interesting to check out the entire whole dried squid. I haven't gotten the stomach to try it yet. The Twins beat the Giants 4-0!! The crowd going crazy!
The person I didn't want to be at the game: The man passing out red balloons. I think they just did this for their last game--it was hilarious watching people of all ages run and tackle the balloon man--for a free one!
The cheerleaders! They sure do know how to get the crowd going!

Sunday was a day packed full. It started with mass at the International Catholic Church near our house. A great way to start the day. I then joined a Seoul Stitch & *itch group here! It was an awesome way to meet some new faces. We had a S&B group in Italy--so it was really neat to see how women all over the world come together to work on knitting/crocheting projects. Some gals were working on sweaters, bags, etc. I quickly learned that I need take a walk outside of the box and learn a new stitch. This will be my goal for our next meeting. They meet up twice a month--which should keep me busy on some projects :)

Then it was back to the Seoul Drum Festival. One of the gals from the group joined me. The temperature was perfect--and the bands were great. There's something about live music that just makes you want to dance. The Korean crowd was a bit tame--in the US, the crowd would have been up dancing all around. People quietly kept their seats until the end--when everyone got up on the stage and danced around the performers, etc. It was great. See the pictures below.

Indonesian Band--Sambasunda--check out the guys on the floor--they would even use their left foot. Now that takes some coordination.

The ending performance--similar to the opening one!--Still very impressive. The drummers were jamming. I just love the fans!! The girls dancing-Check out the drummers fire drumsticks!
The End: The crowd rushes to dance in front and on the stage with band members!
Below are videos from the various performers that played at the Drum Festival. Enjoy a brief overview of what the performances were like! ~Check out the Turkish Band--they played music with two wooden spoons--some on their mouth to get the right sound effect. It was impressive to say the least.