Wednesday March 14 - All about the history...

Hello!

This was definitely a more relaxed day...our automated wake-up call didn't come until 7:30 - woohoo! Mind you, with Bryanna regularly waking between 5 and 5:30, wake-up calls are pretty much unnecessary for us - and this is typical for most of our group. We're all doing better with our changed timeclocks but continue to wake earlier than we would at home.

Today was the visit to one of Beijing's famous hutongs. Hutongs are the old traditional neighbourhoods found throughout the city. (The word hutong is mongolian and means "well". Each street in the hutong would have a well dug in order for the residents to access water.) There were once 2000 hutongs throughout Beijing but the government was rapidly pulling them down in order to build more high-rise apartments. Historians lobbied passionately for a halt to the destruction of these neighbourhoods as hundreds of years of Beijing's history was being wiped out. The lobbyists were successful and it has been decreed that no further hutongs will be destroyed - however, there are now only 500 left of the original 2000.

Our bus took us to one of the most famous hutongs - just north of the Forbidden City. We were met by a local guide who escorted us to a long line of rickshas and the children (and adults) piled in with great delight.

We were driven through the hutong. Bryanna and Cassidy loved this part of the day. We left the rickshas at the side of the Ten Temple Sea (just a pretty lake, of course, but it was named by an emperor, and who is going to argue with him if he says something is a sea? hee hee)

We walked along the famous Opium Road and then up Drum Tower Avenue - the road that runs through the centre of Beijing.

Our goal was the famous Drum Tower itself - the place where - up until 1924 - drums would be struck daily to tell the city what time it was. We climbed the 69 long flight of tall stairs (one flight, no landings, VERY steep) to the top for a great view of the city (it would have been spectacular if the pollution hadn't added a foggy haze to the horizon). As usual, all the children were game and made it to the top without a problem and in time for the daily drum performance.

Then down we trooped and walked a short distance to the accompanying Bell Tower which, as its name indicates, contains a bronze bell of many tons (sorry, memory escapes me on how many tons!) which used to ring along with the beating drums to indicate particular times of day.

We didn't climb that tower, but instead entered the tea-room in the base of the building. There a papercutter came to demonstrate papercutting for the children and show them how to do some simple papercuts (a star, and a butterfly). Cassidy "won" a prize for her star ~ though she had a lot of help ~ and was given a pair of papercut scissors that had been used by the papercutter's family for many years - very cool.

Then we all had fun learning about and tasting various Chinese teas (well, perhaps the adults enjoyed it a touch more than the kids), and spending more of our yuan in the accompanying gift shop!

And still our visit wasn't over - we were then led to a family's home in the hutong where we had a lunch that had been set up for us on tables throughout their home (living room, sitting room, bed-room) overlooking the courtyard which is central to each hutong home.

We headed back to the hotel on the bus and were back around 3:00 pm. The majority of our group later headed out to see the Beijing acrobats but Cassidy is fighting the little cold that a number of the children have picked up and we felt it would be good for both her and Bryanna to have some down-time. Quiet time in our rooms with a dvd movie, a swim in the pool (gorgeous pool here at the Jianguo Hotel) ...

...and then dinner at the neighbouring mall was a nice change of pace for us. We met the group returning from the show as we walked back to the hotel and we hear that they all had a super time, too.

Tomorrow is the Great Wall and infamous cable car ride. I'm pretty sure that every single one of the kids will take the ride to the highest part of the mountain to walk upon the Wall there, but we'll have to wait and see how many of the adults have the courage to accompany them!

Have passed on all the various greetings as requested - thanks so much for those good wishes and messages...we love to read them. Sorry I don't have clear pictures of everyone in the group for you yet, but will work on it.

Till tomorrow, good night!