We spent our last day in Beijing, Saturday October 29th. Our entire adoption group was together as we toured Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, and walked up the Great Wall of China at the Badaling entrance.
The Forbidden City was really neat. I had no idea how extensive it is. We kept walking in and out of gigantic courtyards and plazas, and never knew how many more were to come. It was funny because at first, we were taking tons of photos. As we entered our umpteenth plaza/courtyard and had already taken a bazillion photos, we kind of got burned out because we had mismanaged our picture taking. I did love quite a few things about the Forbidden City and our guide, Veronica (Yue), did such a great job of giving us history lessons along the way. One thing for sure, those emperors were certainly scared of getting attacked and killed, even by their concubines, who had to be kept in their holding rooms completely naked under the sheet covering them.
We heard more about Empress Cixi, the Dragon Lady, whose stories by our guide always amused me. She gave away Hong Kong to the British, and that is one reason many Chinese dislike her. She had her son become an Emperor and also her nephew, but she tried to use them as her mouthpiece so she could be the ruler behind the throne.
I loved the yellow ceramic tiles on all the rooftops inside the Forbidden City; they were just like the Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace, which had blue and green ceramic tiled roofs.
At one point in the huge throng of sightseers, I heard a young twentysomething European or American guy mention to his female travel companion that he was surprised at all the pushing and shoving by the local Chinese. I kind of laughed to myself because this is a huge issue that we've encountered in mainland China. It seems to permeate their culture and speaks volumes to us about the overarching message here that it is basically a survival of the fittest mentality. You seem to be fighting your way through life every day here, whether it is hopping on a bus, the subway, driving on the roads, shopping in the markets, or waiting in any line. I'm sure it applies to other areas of their lives as well.
Before we drove to the Great Wall we were dragged to a jade market in an attempt by our adoption agency and the government officials to squeeze every last dime out of us adopting Americans who obviously have the word "sucker" stamped onto our foreheads.
It was hazy/foggy (never sure if it's haze/smog or fog that they have here) but I was so ready for my chance to walk up the wall that I didn't care too much. Ummmm, yeah, so I knew it would be unsteady, and the rocks would be uneven, but I did not realize just how steep and shallow the steps would be. Wow. It was insane. I loved it, but it was insane. I was determined to climb as far as I could in the time our tour group was allotted to be there. I was not going to sit down near the bottom and be lazy. I worked it. I worked it so hard, my legs wobbled into jello on the way down! It was so cool though, and I'm proud of my accomplishment. One guy in our group made it to the sixth tower and that is just plain amazing. I think I made it 20 steps shy of the third, but I was not paying attention to the towers. I was trying too hard to focus on every individual step and clinging on for dear life to that railing!
After we got home from the Great Wall through Beijing's massive daily traffic nightmare, we packed our suitcases to fly to Nanchang, Jiangxi Province on Sunday morning, where we met our babies at our hotel.
No comments:
Post a Comment