Caleb Joshuah Truth DrexlerGate at Tiananmen Square
National People's Congress
Our group
Mao
Mao
Inner gate Forbidden City
Forbidden City
Forbidden City
Forbidden City
Inner Palace
Forbidden City
Summer Palace
Dragon symbol
Summer Palace Lake
Buddhist Temple
Boat ride on lake
Peking duck dinner but not for Lenny
Opera makeup
Opera makeup
Beijing Opera performance
We woke up to great news today. Caleb Joshuah Truth Drexler was born to Michael and Kimberley on Friday, May 8th at 11:30 a.m. weighing in at 7 lbs 8 oz and he was 21.5 inches long. We just got our first pictures and he has very light hair and of course, he is just beautiful. Due to the time change, we have not been able to connect live with the kids yet but we are hoping to make that happen tonight if possiible. Caleb is our fifth grandchild and of course, just as special as all the rest! We certainly feel very blessed as our little family continues to grow.
We also had a very busy and interesting day today starting with breakfast at 7:30 and out touring by 8:30. We have a very nice guide. He is 27 years old and his English name is Barron. He is very knowledgeable and has excellent english language skills. We are now a group of six as we have been joined by Sandye and Mike Geller and Lynn and Linda Newport - friends from Atlanta.
Our day started with a trip to Tiananmen Square. My first thought is to try to describe the crowds of tourists, mostly Asians, lined up to enter the square and then The Forbidden City.
Everything in this country is large; the population is 1.3 billion and 17 million live in Beijing. There must have been 100,000 visitors on the square today. The Chinese groups all have matching hats to help their guides identify them and they are very aggressive when moving forward to see the sights. The impression was truly of a massive sea of people and in some ways it was really overwhelming. As we got onto the square, we saw the First Gate, the National Museum, and the National People's Congress. Our guide told us that there were 70 million Communist Party Members in the country and that you need to be a member of the party to progress in the government and although the government jobs don't always pay very well, they have big perks such as cars, travel, living stipends, healthcare, etc. Then we approached the north end of the square where we walked through the Second Gate which leads to the Main Gate of The Forbidden City (now referred to as The Royal Palace). There continued to be masses of people everywhere. The Forbidden City is made up of a series of large gates that go on and on leading you to the Royal Palace. It is hard to describe how really big the whole complex is. We were struck by the fact that these structures and all their grandour were built by the Emperor for the Emperor and only the Royal Family and the dignitaries of the time were ever permitted inside the walls. The common people lived outside the gates which are surrounded by a moat and never had access to the city. Our tour lasted four and a half hours of walking and we only saw a very small amount of it. We learned a lot about the Emperor, the Empress, the concubines, the eunichs, and the history of the UAN (established by the Mongols) Ming (1368 to 1644) and the Ching (1644 to 1911) Dynasties. We walked on the path where the film, The Last Emperor was made. He ruled from age 3 to age 6 when he was driven out but his mother, the Dowager Empress was really the power behind the Throne and she is now known as the Dragon Lady.
We had lunch at the typical tourist stop restaurant (not very good) which also included a scheduled stop at the Pearl shop where there was a lot of pressure to try to sell to tourists.
Our afternoon trip was to the Summer Palace of the Emperor. After he died, the son of his concubine became Emperor and the concubine became the Dowager Empress, later called the Dragon Lady as she was much hated by the people. She was extremely powerful, spent a fortune on expanding the grounds and the furnishings of the Summer Palace, building a huge Buddhist Temple just for herself, there was a theater where only she watched performances several times a week and many gardens. The grounds of the Summer Palace were at least four times larger than the grounds of the Forbidden City which is hard to comprehend.
Without any break, we then were taken to dinner where we experienced a meal including the famous Peking Duck. Most of us didn't care for many of the dishes that were also served. It certainly was an experience. After dinner we then got back in our van and went to the Liyuan Theater to see a local Chinese Opera and we all agreed that this was one of the day's highlights. We were able to watch the actors and actresses put on their makeup. The costumes were so colorful and interesting and the performance was spectacular. There opera is a mixture of music, singing, acrobatics, pantomime and storytelling. The highlight was the last act where a woman baton/javalin twirling. The hit of her act was her ability to juggle several javalins being thrown at her, catching them with her feet and flinging them with amazing accuracy to the others on stage.
It was a 14 hour day and we are really knocked out. We start again tomorrow at 7:30. We are all looking forward to our trip to The Great Wall.
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