We started Sunday with a tai chi lesson in the park at the Temple of Heaven. The Chinese people are ardent exercisers and every day you will see them exercising or dancing alone or in groups, and they bring their music with them. Others in the park walk or play cards or mah Jong. It was all very festive and Dave and our guide had a hard time prying me away from it all.
After a sumptuous lunch - oh, this Chinese food is so good - we went to the an ancient Hutong area where the streets are narrow and you are peddled around in pedicabs. We visited the home of a young woman who gives lessons in paper cutting and cooking, and practices the art of painting beautiful and delicate scenes inside snuff bottles. Later we wandered through a local market where our guide identified several spices that are regularly used in Chinese cooking. Lastly, we climbed steep stairs to the top or a drum tower where five boys banged huge drums in rhythm to indicate the time of the historical opening and closing of the gates of the city.
Our last morning in Beijing took us to the Lama Temple, one of the largest, and most important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the world where Buddhists come to worship and burn incense. Then, before we headed to the airport for our flight to Xian, we took in some of the art in the 798 Art Zone, a thriving artistic community housed in 50-year old decommissioned military factory buildings.
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| Summer Palace Lake |
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| Dancing in the Park |
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| Pedicabs waiting for passengers |
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| Drum Tower |
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