Sightseeing around Beijing. Tuesday 4th Sept.

Tuesday 4th September

We started the day with a tour of Tienanmen Square, seeing it for the first time in daylight. Tienanmen is the largest square in the world and is said to hold 1 million people. It is the seat of power in China where the Great Hall of the People is the Chinese equivalent of our Federal Parliament. The main hall seats 10,000 and the banquet hall will take 5,000 diners at one time.

After a photo shoot of our group in front of Tienanmen Gate, and Mao's picture, we moved on to the Forbidden City. This was the palace of all of the Emperors who ruled China fro the 1400's until 1908.

After lunch in a classy restaurant, which was included in the package, (lunch most days are), we moved on to a silk factory and watched silk being wound from the cocoons onto spindles, as well as doonas being made from silk cocoons. A silk dooner is said to keep you warm in winter and cool in summer. Quite a few of the party bought silk doonas as we moved into the retail area to purchase bedding and clothing in a shopping frenzy.

After the silk factory we drove to the Summer Palace which is really a gigantic lake within a very large garden. This is where the Emperors spent the 4 hottest months of the year. The lake is partly man-made and partly natural. In winter it freezes over and people skate on it and in Summer, it is a popular boating place.

We boarded a launch in the shape of a dragon and glided across the lake to the other side where we alighted below a temple, taking pride of place high on a hilltop, overlooking the lake below.

We finished the day with some colourful theatre watching the Shaolin Monks performing a story incorporating some impressive feats of Kung Fu.