The Adventure

Today was a pretty tiring day with a morning call at 7:00. Breakfast in the new 5 star hotel was great. I ate fried rice and noodles and jason ate the same thing plus cereal. We departed at 8:30 on the big bus. Our first adventure was at the Temple of Heaven. We saw many different activities such as taiji ball and stick things (look at pictures and videos) :) It was entirely built out of wood without using nails. It was also 3 stories tall and supported by 11 columns which was pretty awsome. It's also called the temple of prayer for good harvest and the emperor would go there once or twice a year to pray for good harvest.

Next we went to the pearl factory where we saw how to get freshwater pearls directly from an oyster. There were a lot of pearls inside one, maybe about 30 in each. Then they brought us to the merchandise where we could buy pearls made into various jewelry and ornaments. A woman name Carrie showed us the tell us how to tell a fake pearl from a real one by rubbing two pearls together. A plastic slidy feeling meant that they were fake and a rough feeling which developed whitish powderlike residue.

Tiannamen Square was our next stop. We walked around the square watching the many soldiers and security guards/cameras patrolling the area. A ton of people were there and several merchants tried to sell us stuff such as "rolex" watches, olympic hats, and postcards. Around 11:45 we left and went for lunch which was entirely vegetarian and was quite tasty for a vegetarian meal.

At 1:30 we got to the Forbidden City fist stopping at the gardens and then going to the inner city where we had about 30 minutes of freetime to take pictures. All the buildings looked pretty much the same and the only difference were the small statues on the roof determining the most important buildings from the least important. At 4:00 we left and went to the silk factory.

They showed us how to obtain silk from silkworm cocoons and make different linens. Silk is strong, lightweight, and long lasting making it a popular type of material. We spent about an hour wandering about the store which was pretty pricy. A lot of us bought silk ties for our fathers or friends back home. Jason got a hankerchief-ish silk picture.

Dinner was as usual with chinese food and as Miguel discussed his plans for next years opening speech for the senior class, Josh and Ross made many supportive (and strange) suggestions which was pretty entertaining.

The end of today's adventure was the see the acrobatic kungfu show at 7:30. The show was basically about a monk named chunyi who mastered kungfu as a child but couldnt control his mind or desires. Eventually he became a warrior monk and eventually the abbot of the temple. Pictures and video were limited in the theater and one lady was watching out for cameras so sorry for the bad quality photos. We got back to the hotel at 9:15 and the great wall is the adventure for tomorrow.

Blogged by Nathan and Jason