First full day in Beijing

Monday October 7, 2013
Our flight from Washington leaving at 12:20 Saturday afternoon actually landed in Beijing at 2:20 Sunday afternoon due to the time change of 12 hours ahead added to the 14 hour flight.
On Monday morning, our  busload of 24 plus 2 guides first went to the Temple of Heaven where the emperor went to humble himself in prayer to guarantee a good harvest.

 There is a huge square at the entrance and lots of parkland. These people were using the space to dance while others were doing tai chi or other exercises or practising their calligraphy on the pavement using big brushes and water. As we saw throughout southeast Asia, in China people really use the parks and are not embarrassed to be seen doing things that would be unusual in Canadian parks. Everyone lives in apartments so this is their open space

 In China, squares or rectangles, like the shape of the park, represent the earth and circles represent the heavens. Here is Anita on the central circle reaching up to heaven.

Another part of the Temple of Heaven.
Every day for lunch we were taken on the bus to a nice, big restaurant with round tables. Each table had a huge lazy susan turntable where at least 10 different dishes were placed. We all got green tea and one glass of beer per meal. Each table was marked with a flag for the different groups. We were always Table 12. The 8 of us would spin the turntable and take whatever food we wanted. We were taught that the Chinese version of "Cheers" was pronounced "Gambay" which we somehow immediately mangled to "Rambo" (I think Anita had a hand in this). At every meal we cheered "Rambo" for the next 3 weeks.
Right near the Temple of Heaven is Tiananmen Square, the Hall of the People (like Parliament), and Mao's tomb. Tiananmen Square leads to the Forbidden City just across the street.

Photo-op in front of the Temple of Heaven.

 In Tiananmen Square we are in front of the tomb of the unknown soldier and the Hall of the People. Our guide said that he would answer any political questions when we were in the privacy of the bus but not to ask him political questions in public. He had a real and very rational fear of being arrested if he was ever critical of the government in public. Around public places in Beijing, especially Tiananmen Square, there are lots of closed circuit tv surveillance cameras. The Chinese government is very serious about repression of dissent. The Chinese public know less about arrested dissidents than we learn about them in Canada. There are no human rights or free speech in China.

 Photo op in the Forbidden City, the former home of the emperor where he lived with his family, concubines and eunuch servants. The Forbidden City is massive. It took quite a bit of the hot, sunny afternoon to walk through it.

After dinner we went to the Peking Opera, a traditional Chinese opera. Before the show, an assistant dressed one of the main characters on stage to show us the elaborate costume. We were all really tired from our day in the hot sun and from jet lag, to the point where many of us were nodding off in our seats. However, the screeching operatic so-called singing woke us up. Many of us got a little giddy but tried to be respectful and not laugh. Unfortunately that led to a lot of snorting and giggling that we couldn't stop for awhile. We couldn't wait for the main character to commit suicide, as promised, so the performance would end. We can't recommend going to a Chinese opera. It's excruciating.