Last Day in Beijing

We walked to the Forbidden City this morning after breakfast.  This is where the emperors of China lived and what a place it must have been.  There are 9,999 rooms to the place and courtyard after courtyard.  Each building or temple was devoted to something in particular...meeting with military leaders, rooms for the empress, married quarters for the Emperor,  places to offer sacrifices, places to reflect, etc.   It was huge.  We didn't have a lot of time to spend there so we basically walked right through the middle taking in the overall effect of the place but didn't have time to poke our heads into much of the side areas.  Only a few of the large center buildings had items in them to view but visitors couldn't go in.  We had to look through glass windows (that replaced the old rice paper windows) from the outside.  Unfortunately the light wasn't very bright in any of the rooms and the windows were hard to see through unless we had our noses against them and our hands shading the light from outside so it was very hard to see the items well from that distance.  The best room was the bedroom of the emperor and empress.  It had red everything...carpets, bed drapes, bed comforter, throne cushions, etc.  Red is considered a lucky color and one that wards off demons so it was really spectacular when combined with all the embroidery work that was in each piece.

From the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square is directly across the street.  We went through an underground tunnel to get there so we didn't have to play Frogger with the traffic. It was pretty cool to stand in such a historic place.  Military presence is definately felt there with soldiers wandering around and some marching in formation through while we were looking around. 

From there we took the subway (very clean and fast) back to the Pearl Market where we shopped on the first day.  We bought some more goodies and had a great time.  Probably one of our most memorable experiences today happened as we tried to get a cab back to the hotel.  There were six of us...us four, plus Zach and one other American woman in our group.  Zach hailed (or was ignored by) at least 50 cabs.  It was incredible.  A cab would pull over and Zach would show them the card for the hotel with directions and information in Chinese, then he would talk to them in Chinese, and they would refuse to take us for one reason or another--about to get off work, too far, too short, no reason at all, couldn't speak English, couldn't speak chinese, would take us but we would have to go "Off the meter" and pay per person (up to 18x the normal price), etc.  Having traveled to many places in the work, I was staggered by this.  It took us 45 minutes to get one cab that took 4 of us and shortly another cab brought the other two.  I have to give Zach a lot of credit for his hard work in getting us "home" safely.

Once back at the hotel, the kids didn't feel like going out for Chinese dinner so they stayed behind and had Pizza Hut pizza with Shaun who is still babying his tummy a bit.  I went out with the rest of the group to have Peking Duck.  The actual duck portion was preceeded by quite a few "dishes" which were really delicious.  Turned out that my final meal here was actually my most favorite of all.  Everything tasted great, wasn't spicy, and hit the spot for me.  I was sad that the others hadn't joined us.  We wrapped up the dinner with good conversation and a prayer.

Then it was returning to the hotel to pack.  All of us leave tomorrow at various times except for one American who will leave on Friday.  We were well cared for while we were here...from beginning to end.  The students we worked with were dedicated, enthusiastic, and so welcoming.  The staff of the school are truly amazing people who have a real calling to be in China teaching English and changing lives.  We would recommend this trip to anyone.  Be willing to teach and to learn, to share and to respect, to care and be cared for in return.

Gotta run.  Morning will be here before we know it and the alarm is set for 5:10 a.m.  We fly out of here at 8:50 a.m. and arrive in Anchorage at 12:40 p.m., I think, after more than 20 hours of travel.  Ahh, time zones and time changes.  

Hugs and kisses, DD.  We have missed you so much and have been talking about how glad we will be to see you again.  We hope you have had a wonderful time with Grama (and Papa even though he is gone now) and can't wait to hear your tales as well as share ours.