We started our day with a walk through Tian An Men Square, which means the Square of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the location where the people come to celebrate when they are happy and demonstrate when there upset, like the protesting students in the 1989 demonstration. The Square is bordered by the China National Museum, the Great Hall of the People (where the Chinese Congress meets) Mao’s Mausoleum (where his body lies in a crystal coffin) and the Tian An Men (the outer most gate of the Forbidden City). In the middle of the square is the Monument to the People’s Heroes (a tomb of an unknown soldier). While we were there, the first souvenirs we picked up were Chairman Mao watches. The best feature of the watch is Mao’s waving arm. We’ll see how long Mao keeps waving or keeping time, I sure hope he makes it through the trip.
The Forbidden City was beautiful! Back in the day, if you wanted to see the emperor, you had to walk through a series of gates that separates the outer court and the inner court and then you get to the Hall of Supreme Harmony, where enthronement ceremonies were held. Unfortunately, they were doing renovations of the hall so it was surrounded by scaffolding. We got to check out some of the living quarters in the Palace and one of my favorite features of the buildings in the city that is forbidden were the roof guardians, a series of figures that protect the buildings from fire. The Forbidden City, with its 9,999 rooms, was made of wood and cement and so they were fearful of fire in the city. Before the days of running water, the large cauldrons surrounding the buildings were filled with water, in the event of a fire.
After lunch we walked around the Summer Palace. Beautiful, wish you were here! The Summer Palace was the place the emperor would go for R&R and why wouldn’t he with this view?
Ok, be alarmed but I’m downshifting into potty talk. You probably didn’t know this, but they have a star rating system for the toilets here in China. A four star bathroom is a western toilet. We had to use the three star bathrooms at the Summer Palace. A three star bathroom is what you might call a “squatty potty.” Yep, it looks just like it sounds. Oh, by the way, it is BYOTP (bring your own toilet paper). This isn’t actually me first experience with this style of bathroom…two prior trips to Korea have prepared me for this experience and I’m all too familiar with the scenario.
The other interesting fact I learned today deals with China’s family planning policy. China has a one child per family policy, but what I didn’t realize is that you actually have to apply to the government if you want to have a baby and they only allow a set amount of pregnancies in each city per year. So you may be told sorry, better luck next year. Ok, that’s it for me, I’m sleepy.
The Forbidden City was beautiful! Back in the day, if you wanted to see the emperor, you had to walk through a series of gates that separates the outer court and the inner court and then you get to the Hall of Supreme Harmony, where enthronement ceremonies were held. Unfortunately, they were doing renovations of the hall so it was surrounded by scaffolding. We got to check out some of the living quarters in the Palace and one of my favorite features of the buildings in the city that is forbidden were the roof guardians, a series of figures that protect the buildings from fire. The Forbidden City, with its 9,999 rooms, was made of wood and cement and so they were fearful of fire in the city. Before the days of running water, the large cauldrons surrounding the buildings were filled with water, in the event of a fire.
After lunch we walked around the Summer Palace. Beautiful, wish you were here! The Summer Palace was the place the emperor would go for R&R and why wouldn’t he with this view?
Ok, be alarmed but I’m downshifting into potty talk. You probably didn’t know this, but they have a star rating system for the toilets here in China. A four star bathroom is a western toilet. We had to use the three star bathrooms at the Summer Palace. A three star bathroom is what you might call a “squatty potty.” Yep, it looks just like it sounds. Oh, by the way, it is BYOTP (bring your own toilet paper). This isn’t actually me first experience with this style of bathroom…two prior trips to Korea have prepared me for this experience and I’m all too familiar with the scenario.
The other interesting fact I learned today deals with China’s family planning policy. China has a one child per family policy, but what I didn’t realize is that you actually have to apply to the government if you want to have a baby and they only allow a set amount of pregnancies in each city per year. So you may be told sorry, better luck next year. Ok, that’s it for me, I’m sleepy.
2 comments:
How come it's totally inappropriate to talk about toilets until you get out of the country? I only say that because the Banceu's just headed over to Germany and you won't believe the topic of one of Annie's blogs...you just have to see it to believe it...Click here It's too gross.
It's actually about the type of conversation that we get into when the worship team is backstage waiting for the service to start. It's fitting because you are supposed to be on this weekend so let me just cut it off here and say, "Jeanette...why don't you pray for us."
jro
If that is a three star toilet, what is a two star!
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