Another day in China!

This morning we woke up bright and early for another Chinese Continental Breakfast. Today's breakfast featured what I think was a kiwi juice. I'm not sure if that is what it was, but, despite its think green color, it tasted amazing. After downing a few glasses of the juice it was time to board the busses to the Urban Planning Museum. The second we entered this museum I was in shock over how awesome it was. It was like no museum I have ever seen before in my life. The first thing we saw as we went on the escalators was a 50 foot tall scaled model of Beijing made out of bronze. It was absolutely increadible to see the entire city layed out infront of us. We could destinctly recognize the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven on the map which we had visited yesterday. Now thinking that this was amazing we then walked a few feet to see a birds eye view of a full scale model in color of the entire city. I felt as if I were in an airplane looking down at Beijing. The detail of this masterpiece was outstanding and was made in only six months by a team of 200 people. We took a small detour away from this map to see scale models of the Olympic Stadiums which were used in the 2008 Olympics. The models were amazing and the detail and thought put into them was amazing. It is truly amazing to see the detail and thought put into all of these structures. We then went down stairs and got a close up look of the model of the entire city of Bejing. The detail of this model was amazing. We easily spotted our hotel and the facade of it looked identical to what it actually looks like. Our tour guides could even point out their appartments in the model. After seeing this amazing creation we sat down and watched a 3-D movie on the history of Beijing and its buildings. When the film finished, we went to leave but couldn't do so until taking a group photo infront of the Museum. I guess that we are intriguing because we had two groups of people from China and one from Korea hop in to take pictures with us.

We all loaded back in the bus and got on our way to a local outdoor shopping mall. There were so many amazing stores there that I really wish I had more time to roam around. Nonetheless, I had time to visit a sweets shop, a chop stick store (one of the pairs was 400 Yaun), and even a good old H & M. I got a few things there and then got back in the bus to go over to lunch. Lunch was not my favorite. We had Mongolian Hot Pot which is sort of like Asian Melting Pot. For those of you who don't know what that means we had to cook our own meat in a pot of boiling water infront of us. Now when you say meat I would think beef, but that was not all, we had all different parts of a lamb to eat as well including lamb intestines. While it may not be as bad as sheep stomach, it did not taste good. The "desert" which was expected to be sweet and tasty was not at all. It was a greasy donut with not much taste. After our interesting meal we went to the a local Hutong and visited two interesting families. A Hutong is a type of ancient home in Beijing. The first family we met gave us a tour of their home and the elements of Feng Shui in the construction. The home consists of 9.5 rooms, the Emporor's favorite number. The rooms made 4 quarters of the home with a courtyard in the middle. The north, east, south and west quarters were symbolic of the 4 elements of Feng Shui (water, fire, wood and metal) with the courtyard in the middle for earth. The Hutong house had relatively nice decoration with very nice TVs, but, was pretty small. Even though it looked small the selling price is 10 million Yaun (about $1.5 million). After getting a tour of this house, we went to another home in the same village and met with a master caligrapher to learn the art of Chinese caligraphy. The man taught us about the paper and brushes and the technique and then let us try to write the character for longevity. It was very difficult but did not come out all that bad. When we finished our masterpieces the master let us keep the caligraphy brushes as a present.

When we left the home we all got on a caravan of rickshaws that took us to our bus. The rickshaw drivers got very intence and we had some what of a race between them through the streets of Beijing. My rickshaw did not win but our efforts were commendible. After getting on the bus our group departed for the Silk museum. At the museum we learned how the moths make cacoons and how those are the fibers for silk. The guide then gave our group the opportunity to make our own silk comforter. It was really cool to feel how soft and how strong it was. We did the math and figured that to make one comforter it takes about 16,000 moths. That is surely a lot! Upon concluding our tour we visited the silk shop and were given the opportunity to purchase silk scarfs, clothing, ties, carpets, pictures, bedding and more. After that shopping we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

Dinner tonight was at a very nice, upscale noodle restaurant named Loft. We were in a private room and enjoyed a plethora of different dishes placed on the lazy susan infront of us. It was all really good, especially the noodles. I think that is all for today because it is time for me to go to sleep.

Zai Jian!