The Great Wall

   

 We started out our day with a trip to the Great Wall.  The Great Wall is just a short 1 hour drive from Beijing. We arrived around 10 am and began our adventure hiking and climbing the wall.  I think we were all surprised at how very steep most of the wall is.  It was definitely a challenge! And going down was just as hard as going up.  Once again, it was absolutely packed with people.  Mostly Chinese, with a few foreign visitors sprinkled in.  It's amazing how many Chinese nationals are out enjoying their historical sites- even on a weekday. 

     On the way back into Beijing we stopped at a tea shop for a demonstration of a Chinese tea ceremony.  We enjoyed an assortment of teas, as well as time to browse the shop. We continued our busy day with a quick stop at the site of the Olympic Park.  We saw, close up,  the iconic Birds Nest stadium,  Water Cube, and the giant hotel complex in the shape of a dragon.

     While everything is beautiful,  we will have a new appreciation for the clean air we enjoy at home, after spending a third day under smoggy, hazy skies that obscure the sun on a daily basis.

     Finally, we took an exciting ride in a caravan of rickshaws to our dinner experience.  The ride afforded us an inside look at a neighborhood we might never have a chance to see again. In this "Hutong" neighborhood, narrow paths carve out a neighborhood of multi-family houses which share a courtyard and communal bathroom.  At the end of our mini-tour we enjoyed a home cooked meal in the home of a local family.  It was delicious meal, prepared by a most gracious cook, in a kitchen about the size of a powder room.  After thanking our hosts, we walked past the historic drum and bell tours, boarded our bus, and continued  back to our hotel for some much needed rest.

Day #1 - Tianamane Square

Long travel day before and breakfast came very early.  It didn't really matter though as many were up in the night adjusting to the time change.  After breakfast we boarded the tour bus and went to Tianamane square.

This square is very large and is the location where one of the most famous images occurred when the Chinese government used armed forces to shut down student protesters who wanted democracy. It was a bit surreal standing in the place where people stood in front of government vehicles to protest.

In Tianamane Square

The peoples monument is there as an iconic reminder about the incident.  The square is the center of the city and is surrounded by many government buildings such as the national museum of China. There were tens of thousands in line to see General Mao's tomb.

After the square we walked into the forbidden city.  This place was forbidden to the locals and we learned how different levels of people entered through different gates to the city.  It is the place that housed 24 different Emporers in a 600 year time span.  The city was very large and every turn produced more buildings and rooms. It was something like 9000 different rooms throughout the city.  We learned a lot of information about the dragon lady. (As well as many stories) from our guide Xin.

We stopped at a local mall for lunch where the students had the opportunity to choose their food. Some were adventurous and others settled for KFC, Burger King, McDonalds, Subway, etc.

After lunch we went to see the summer palace. This was a place called lake of the mountain and was used as the summer home for the dragon lady and her son.  The place is very beautiful. We walked quite a bit along the waterfront and then took a dragon boat ride back across the lake.

We ended our day with a traditional Beijing Peking duck dinner.

Devotions back at the hotel as we spent time together talking about Palm Sunday and sharing together.

We have another busy day tomorrow as we will visit the Great Wall.

Thanks

Jack

We made it!

We have arrived!

We have successfully arrived at our hotel, but everyone is quite tired from a very long trip.

We will have dinner at the hotel and then a very busy day tomorrow.

Thank you for your prayers!

LeGrand

Technical Difficulties

Maybe not a huge surprise, but blogging in China is turning out to be rather difficult.  Although they have the technology, they are rather guarded about free speech.  Therefore future posts may be a bit sporadic.  But do not fear, the trip itself is going very well.

Waiting at Toronto Airport

We are at a stop over in Toronto. We are using our time relaxing, eating, and using the free internet.

We hope to board our flight to Beijing in a couple hours.

The time has arrived!

The waiting is over as we get ready to depart for our trip together to China.  Mrs. Hernandez is going to try to keep this blog updated with our experiences together.  We will post as we have the opportunity.  This will also be dependent on the availability of wifi at our hotels.

It is very exciting anticipating our time together. 

We will begin loading tomorrow at 5:30 am.

We will leave tomorrow at 5:45 am.

We have a yellow bus and also will be taking a school van (Thank You Mr. Snoeyink).

Don't forget your passports.

See you all tomorrow!

COUNTDOWN

COUNTDOWN.....2 days to departure.

Pack light-- 5:30 am in front of bus garage on Friday morning.