Beijing -- Temple of Heaven (outer park)

Our first stop in the midst of this 9000 square mile city and its 20 million residents was the beautiful and peaceful
Temple of Heaven. 

Rodney and me with our travel buddies, Brian and Diane

 

 

Our tour guide, Sunny, led us through the fabulous park surrounding the actual temple grounds. 

Each morning retirees meet to do their morning exercises such as waltzing and playing “Jianzi.” It’s like the American game hacky sack, but instead of bean bags, they use weighted feather shuttlecocks.

 

We got to try our hand at Tai Chi! Of course, we didn’t have swords to use, so Rodney used his pen. His reasoning was—“the pen is mightier than the sword”!!
 

Another morning exercise was basically human ring toss! The rings seem to be made of felt-like material. 

And, of course, there’s kung fu. Sunny told us this guy was 80 years old!! It was probably in the 40s and this guy was out there in no shirt and at one point he was hitting himself on the back with a bundle of bamboo sticks!! Not actually the highlight of my trip, I must admit. 

This little piece of our morning, on the other hand, WAS a highlight! In this section of the park, among the mass of retirees was this cute little man!! He walked up to our group, reached into his bag, and pulled out his treasured photo album. It seemed some pictures were maybe of his personal family, but his most treasured seemed to be those of Chairman Mao and HIS family!! Through his conversation with Sunny, we learned that as a member of the Chinese Army, he was stationed in North Korea for five years during the Korean War!!
 

 Now, about that mass of retirees…. With China’s population being about 1.5 billion people, retirement is mandatory and comes a bit earlier than in the states. With the exception of lawyers and  doctors, women retire at 55 and men at 60 making about 200 million senior citizens right now!! So, those still very healthy, active adults have to do something to remain healthy and active…. Like go exercise and hang out with their friends at the park every morning! This particular group was doing a little extra---- they were playing matchmaker--- for their grown, unwed children!! Those grown children are working so hard and all the time, they don’t have time to get out and meet a potential spouse, so the parents go to an area like this with their child’s bio in hand and find a good match for them!! A big selling point is if the child owns their own home (apartment). They are expected to pay half their salary on a house payment!! And if they’re only renting?? Forget it--- NOT considered successful!! (In some areas, a 1,000 square foot, 2 bedroom apartment would sell for about $1 million US dollars!!!)

Even though they say it is arranged marriages, it’s not mandatory in all cases. Some parents are willing to allow the children to meet and go out, but if the children say it’s just not going to work, they “shake hands and walk away.” Although, I bet it’s more of a bow than a handshake

But, if on the other hand, the match works and the couple get married and have their one “allowed by law” child, the grandparents become the care providers while the parents are at work. Who knows, maybe they’ll have enough money to pay for it and their child will  make it to the top of the 30,000 name waiting list for private Pre-K. If not, they’ll babysit until the child is old enough to begin their compulsory 1^st through 9^th grade education career.

An interesting tidbit about the birth of those grandbabies--- China has the highest C-section rate! They plan the delivery for a special day, or to start school at 6 instead of 7 which would them make the child finish compulsory school and ready for work a year earlier!

 Rodney took this picture in a men’s toilet above the urinal....
And, yes, I bet it does help keep it cleaner!!

A couple of taxi options...

 

A cutie!!
After showing us around the grounds, Sunny led us through the gated concrete wall onto the grounds of the
Temple of Heaven....

China World Hotel

The five-star 'home-away-from-home' for government officials and visiting dignitaries!!
The domed sky-light in the bottom left corner is part of the ceiling of an underground mall.

I can't say that I've ever seen a Bentley in real life before, let alone, share a hotel with a Bentley owner!!!

A few views around the hotel lobby.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Elevator Lobby

Breakfast Buffet

It included both Western and Asian choices.

My choices the first morning:
grilled tomato slice, fried egg, bacon, hash brown, and a steamed dumpling.
The tastiest choice was the GRANNY SMITH apples!!! See, sadly, we don't have my favorite apple on our little island, so we took FULL advantage-- one at breakfast, then grabbing one on the way out for a snack later in the day :0)

 

You know, not every hotel has picture worthy public toilets!! 

 

Our turn-down service~ slippers in place, which coordinate with the luscious bathrobes hanging in the closet. But, you should have seen Rodney's size 13 feet in Asian size slippers!!!
Tap water in China is not drinkable, so each hotel we stayed in provided one bottle of water for each occupant each day. This hotel even placed it by the bed with a glass!

Our sixth floor elevator lobby.... taken on our way down to check out after three very full days!

Now for sites of Beijing.....

China-- Here we come!!!

When we learned we were going to be stationed in Okinawa, we began with the “OH, we could go here,” and “OH, we could go there!” Australia, Singapore, and Bangkok being mentioned.  But, always at the top of our list was the Great Wall. When we found out about the eight day/three city tour, we decided, if we’re gonna do China, we might as well do China!! Our friends, the Baileys, had had the same idea and we determined, it would make the trip even more memorable to take it together. So, now here we are standing in the commissary parking lot on Camp Foster….It’s almost 2:30 Sunday afternoon, November 18, 2012, and here comes the bus (A Navy MWR bus, I might add!!)!!! We are merely steps away from the beginning of a trip of a lifetime!!!!

 

The Baileys and the Weavers and nine other families are boarded and ready to go to the airport!!

 

Meet Yuki, our tour escort. Once he led us through check in for our international flight, we were bused out to our plane for the first two hour flight on China Eastern to Beijing via Shanghai.

 

 

We were able to see a beautiful sunset through the clouds as we flew…

 

At one point, we were able to see the lights of fishing boats on the water… It was a lovely sight!

For our in-flight dinner, the choices were fish rice or pork rice. (I misunderstood and said I’d take the chicken!!) I then asked for the pork.  It came with watermelon, a cup of water, potato salad, (the green is a divider) ‘something’ with sesame seeds on top,  a pickled slice of vegetable, an octopus ‘salad’ in the silver cup, and a pretty tasty custard for dessert.

We had a sparkly nighttime view of Shanghai at the end of our first flight. Yuki escorted us through customs and immigration and from the international terminal to the domestic for our flight on to Beijing.

Finally, after midnight, we had met our Chinese tour guide, Sunny, had arrived at the China World Hotel, been checked in, and began to settle ourselves in Room 602. We delayed our crash into bed long enough to snap a few initial pictures.

 

I feel safer already, knowing there is a fire escape mask available, should the need arise!!