Today was another fun day. Both Shawn and I were very sore from climbing the Great Wall so we were a little slower walking around the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was a beautiful garden surrounding a lake where emperors would spend their summers. After the Summer Palace, we headed off to HuTong to have lunch and a tour. HuTong is basically Old Beijing located in the middle of the city. Beijing is a city created by a series of rings (think 6 increasing larger 285's). HuTong is in the middle and there are the orginal houses of Beijing, some 600-700 years old. The government has not allowed buildings to be built inside the 2nd ring tall than a certain height, so from two time towers located in the middle of the HuTong, you can see the old town of Beijing and in the distance, all the new, tall buildings. Before the tour, we had lunch. It was the BEST lunch at the home of a local family. Apparently, they cook for people on tours in their home. The food was so good! We then took a fast tour (too fast) in a tricycle of the HuTong town and went into the Drum Tower (in the old days, drums were beat to tell the hour at night) and the Bell Tower (which we didn't go into) kept the hours during the day. 
We visited one more place as our last stop on our tour of Beijing, YongHe Palace. There we learned a lot about the history of Buddha. There are 3 main Buddhas (no big stomachs): Past, Present and Future Buddha. The fat, big bellied Buddha we've all seen is called "Laughing Buddha" and he is connected to Future Buddha. There are also Buddha's for many other things (a blue, green, and white one for north, east and south and a female Buddha for women). Buddism is one of the most popular religions in China followed by Christianity.
For our last dinner in China, we had Peking duck. Apparently, everyone who comes to China has to have Peking Duck. It was fun to watch a man cut it in front of us and it was good, but our home-cooked meal earlier for lunch was better by far. 
No comments:
Post a Comment