Beijing

We went to a home in old Beijing.  The owner of the 150-year-old home, an older woman, told us about her family's history.  After the Cultural Revolution, her grandparents moved to the home that she lives in now.  The home is painted grey, much to my mother's dismay, because it is Beijing's city color.  It has a small entryway, which we walked through to get into the main room. The main room had a futon, TV, and table.  In the back room there was a bed and a desk with hand-painted vases lining the shelves.  The wood in the home was very old but still looked nice.  She explained how her family has had generations of vase painters.  She was upset that no one was still painting, so she taught her niece how to paint pictures on the inside of vases.  The bottles have been displayed in museums pictures in books, and were publicized during the Beijing Olympics.  Amazed by how intricate the designs on the bottles were, my mom and I bought two, both with pandas painted inside. 
            The Chinese gain all adult rights when they turn 18. They can get their driver's licenses, drink, and enlist in the army. Driver's licenses only take 2 weeks to get and mostly everyone (men and women) has one.
            The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square are huge. I kept thinking it was going to end, but through each doorway there was another square with another building. The buildings were all very colorful.  Red signifies happiness and yellow signifies royalty.  In the dynasty era, the color yellow was reserved for royalty.
            We had a Tai Chi lesson at the Temple of Heaven.  I tried a few moves with my mom, then realized I was not nearly flexible enough to participate. The amount of animals on the top of the building, after the first one, denotes the level of importance of the building.  9 is the largest amount and it is the most important building. Numbers determine a lot.  Even numbers signify death and odd numbers are good luck. 7,5 are royalty, 3 and 5 are commoners. 4 is the most unlucky; death.
            At night, we went to dinner at a restaurant famous for its Peking duck.  It was a family-style meal, so 10 of us sat at one table with a large lazy Susan in the middle.  The meal started with cold dishes.  I would list what they served us, but I have no idea what I ate. I know I ate broccoli, white rice, pork, chicken, beef, bok choy, and other vegetables.  The Peking duck came at the end.  They carved the duck in front of us, cutting each appendage carefully.  The duck was served with a thin pancake in a tortilla-shape box.  The sauce served alongside was a sweet plum sauce.  To eat the duck properly, you dip the duck in the plum sauce, add a small portion of thin onions or cucumbers, then place the duck and the onions on the pancake and wrap it like a burrito.  If I blocked out the fact that I was eating a relative of Donald Duck that resembled the rubber ducky in the bathtub back at my hotel, the duck was very tasty.  The onions added that necessary crunch.  I also enjoyed the sweetness and I'm glad they served it at the end of the meal.
            Ordering water at the restaurants is very difficult.  Beer and soft drinks are included in our fixed-price meals, but water costs extra.  The servers don't know the English word for water and pointing to the water jug does not always work.  China is the first country I've been to where acting out what I want, even pointing to something on the menu, does not work.  Because of that, I have been very dehydrated.