3/23 - A day in the city

We had a great day today. We started out with a nice breakfast at our hotel. They have a buffet that is included with the room charge - everything from congee (rice with meat) to chicken nuggets (yes, Sarah had some for breakfast) to corn on the cob to breakfast food we are used to (fruit, cereal, pancakes, bacon, etc). Our day of touring started at the Panda Zoo. We saw five pandas. They are soooo cute. They almost seemed fake. They were very active - eating bamboo and one was climbing on her playground. We were able to get some great video and pictures and got really close.

Our next stop was the Summer Palace. This is a bit outside the city and was the summer vacation home for the emperor and emperious. The Summer Palace has a huge lake and lots of buildings. The long corridor was under construction, but we still saw a lot. Our tour guide from Lotus travel is Frieda and she is awesome. We were alone with her today so it was a treat because we learned alot and were able to ask as many questions as we could. We learned that the Summer Palace was burned down several times and rebuilt. The Dragon Lady rebuilt it for the final time and even imprisoned the emperor (her nephew) for not listening to her. Just goes to show you that you should always listen to the woman in charge !! We ate lunch there in the building that used to house the opera performers. The Dragon Lady kept them at the palace and had them entertain her every day. The lunch was great. We had several pork dishes, one beef, one spinach, rice and watermelon for dessert. And we all tried the foods (yes, even Steve ate some !!).

After lunch we headed to the Temple of Heaven. This is one of four old temples around the city (Temple of Earth, Moon and Sun are the others). It was built in 1530 !! We walked around and saw really old trees (cypress, one was 500 years old). We saw the locals playing all kinds of card games, singing and performing, playing Chinese chess and of course, trying to sell us lots of goods. We only purchased a few items.

After that, we had about an hour, so we headed for some shopping.

Last but not least, we saw the Chinese acrobats. They were fantastic. It was a one hour show and even though we were very tired, it flew by. Now we are back in the hotel having some snacks and trying to stay awake a bit longer. It is about 8 pm on 3/23.

Tomorrow we head to the Great Wall and the Hutong city (where we will ride in a pedicab and meet a local family).

So, we are having a great time, but are really tired. I hope I can sleep a little later than 3:30 a.m. this time.

Until tomorrow

P.S. I will load some pictures if I can, but the connection is slow here at the hotel.