Last full day in Beijing...

It is our last full day in Beijing. We started it by going to Church. How nice this was for each of us. The drive over we saw another very unusual building. I got three pictures while the bus was moving. What do you think of this engineering job?

This two pictures were taken near where we attended Church. Beautiful.

After Church we visited the Yuan Long Silk Store. As usual they taught us about the silk worms and making the thread and then the fabric. This prepares you for the store that is right there. The first picture is the stages of the larva. The second is Claude holding a cocoon. Usually there is one pupa in a cocoon. Sometimes there are two. If there is one, the single thread that makes up the cocoon can be softened and unwound. If there are two, the cocoon cannot be unwound. So the double cocoons are used to make the batting like filling for comforters and pillows and things. In the third picture she is holding a cocoon by its single thread and explaining just how strong this thread is. The thread will be unwound and several threads will be twisted together to make the thread used for embroidery and weaving into silk fabric. The next picture shows the stretching of the double cocoons so they can be used as the batting for the comforters. And the last picture shows just how light weight that silk batting is. There, we are all trained and ready to shop. 

There was one showroom filled with comforters. They come in weights and you buy according to where in the world you live and what weight is needed for that country. And they come in sizes to fit queen and king and super king sized beds. Now, we didn't go expecting to buy anything. But everyone else seemed to have been intent on buying at least one comforter. One couple bought six of them. Alan and Ida Mae sleep year round under one and it warms them in the winter and cools them in the summer. The use no other blankets. They live in Ogden, Utah. You never, ever run them through the washer. Just take them out in the sun to air out every few weeks. Bugs do not like them so you never have to worry about bed bugs. You could purchase a silk duvet to cover your silk comforter. Or, you can buy the silk comforter and take it home, go to a store and buy two cotton sheets the right size, stitch them together on three sides and slide your silk comforter down in that for a duvet. Claude and I ended up purchasing two, one for each of our beds. We did not purchase the silk duvet for it. That is just too slippery. Buying them in China was very inexpensive. The store squeezes them down so they are easy to pack in your luggage and they just don't add much weight. I'll have to let you know if they work great. Oh the education we received on things in China!

Hanging on the wall for decoration were silk garments like what was made for an Emperor and Empress. Sitting on the ground was an old loom for making silk fabric.

Silk shopping accomplished we were off to walk some more. A lot more. 

First we visited Tiananmen Square. Here is a map showing the square and how it adjoins the Forbidden City. The square is outlined in red. We walked all over it. You must go through security to enter the area of the square though.

Our bus dropped us off across from the original train station. Henry the 9th had us all look below our feet. There were places in the pavement where the 'sewer' was right beneath our feet. These were covers over the holes for squatty potties, the favored potty of the people in Asian countries. When they have a big event on Tiananmen Square, these are uncovered and buildings are placed over them so there are bathroom facilities for people. After the event the buildings are removed and the potty holes are covered again. The last two pictures are the bell tower and the first gate for the Forbidden City. 

As we lined up to go through security, we were across from Chairman Mao's Mausoleum. The story goes that he wanted to be cremated and left instructions to that effect before he died. However, the people felt he should have a place to be remembered so they went against his instructions and buried him here. It is open for people to view him at certain times.

We crossed from security into Tiananmen Square. It is really big.

If you stand in the middle of Tiananmen Square and turn to face Mao's Mausoleum, then you turn right around the Square, this is what you will see. The first three are of the monuments on either side of Chairman Mao's Mausoleum and the Mausoleum. Continue turning right and you see another huge building that is the Great Hall of the People. This is really like their Capitol Hill where congress meets. Turning right again and opposite Chairman Mao's Mausoleum is the Tiananmen Square Gate. Going through this gate puts you in the Forbidden City. It was on this gate that Chairman Mao told the citizens that the Forbidden City was now open for them to visit. To the right of that gate and in front of the huge viewing platform is where the young student was supposedly run over by a tank. That is an iconic image in history. Now there is uncertainty as to whether he died or not. If you make one more turn and face the street we entered the Square on you see the National Museum.

In the center of Tiananmen Square is a tall monument which is the equivalent of our Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Here are some other pictures we took will visiting Tiananmen Square. The first is from one side of the monument to unknown soldiers flanked by Chinese flags with Mao's Mausoleum behind it. The second is me and Claude with Tiananmen Gate in the background. There are guards in front around the base of the flag. The last is a picture of a flag from another country flying with the Chinese flag. There were two different flags from two different countries flying with the Chinese flags. These are put out as a courtesy when a foreign leader is visiting China. So they will change depending on which foreign dignitary is in Beijing or China.

Time to enter and walk through the Forbidden City. We would enter through an opening to the left of Tiananmen Gate as you face it. This leads into a beautiful garden area named Zhongshan Park. One of the purposes for taking us here has to do with our Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many years ago, David O. McKay (who would later be a prophet of the Church) and his companion went to China to dedicated it for missionary work. The exact location of where this was done was drawn on a map. In the second picture from the bottom is a tree that looks dead by the moat around the Forbidden City. That is the tree the two men stood beside when this dedicatory prayer was offered. David O. McKay is a great, great, uncle of Alan (I'm not sure how many greats should be there). Nice bit of Church history for us.

This last picture taken in Zhongshan Park is of paper laying on the ground with poems painted on them. These poems are descriptions of their daughters and they are trying to find marriage partners for them. When I paused very quickly to take this picture, it was the only time I receive a bit of chastisement for taking a picture. I'm not sure if he was afraid I was stealing something with this picture. My intent was just to remember the moment. But, here it is and this is what we were told they do with these poems.

Now we would exit the garden and enter the Forbidden City proper. It was called the Forbidden City because the people were forbidden to enter. Only the Emperor and Empress, concubines and eunuch were allowed to be in the Forbidden City. We didn't go through all 9,999 rooms. That would take days and days. But here are some of the buildings we saw.

The carved marble paths between the stairs were only for the Emperor and Empress. They were carved out of one piece of marble. This same type of stair was in the Temple of Heaven. Did you notice the pictures of the mythical animals on the turned up corners of the roof? Count them. If there are 9 creatures between the first and the last, that is where the Emperor resided. 

We would visit the residence of the Dragon Queen or the Last Empress of China. Her furnishings for her home have been kept and put in the rooms. There are glass windows on the front so you can see into the rooms and what they looked like. There is a center courtyard and the furnished rooms are around the outside of it.  

As we exited this residence, I took a picture of the door. We saw several of these but I didn't remember taking a picture. The number 9 is an important number in China. It is considered lucky. The studs on these doors are in 9 rows top to bottom and with 9 studs in each row.

The next garden was full of limestone rocks. They were placed in the garden as they came from the mountain, holes and all. In the feng shui layout of things you need four things, water, rock, trees and architecture. This would definitely fit the bill for the rock piece of the pie.

Then a few final pictures as we left the Forbidden City. The red flower is a Red Rose Peony just getting ready to blossom out. It is the flower of China. The pink is a Tulip Magnolia.

What a great way to finish off our trip the China. 

Our final destination was one last shopping experience. We would be taken to Yashow Market and left to shop one final time. This building has 6 floors. The top is an eatery. Every square inch is full of shops with an escalator through the middle to get you up and down the floors. This is called a 'knock-off market'. Everything in there is fake. It looks like the real deal but it is all fake and can be sold for a song. All our haggling experience came to bear for those wanting to shop here. Our need was another suitcase like a carry-on size to be sure we had everything within weight limits for our luggage going to America. Other than that, we were really not interested in shopping for silly things. So, we got our suitcase at a very good price, then we exited the building and hiked around the corner where we enjoyed our last dinner in China at a Subway with dessert at a Dunkin Donuts!!! We are so cool.

Time to get back to the hotel and be sure everything was packed correctly for the flight home the next day. We would get to sleep in really late in preparation for that journey.