Day 2: Beijing

This was our first day of sight-seeing in Beijing. We had a fairly early start at 9am after breakfast during which I discovered (a) that bread tastes different in China and (b) that my sister Indra doesn't realise it when milk has gone sour :) I had poured out 2 cups of coffee for two of my sisters and added milk as instructed. Indra drank hers after dumping a packet of sugar into it. Mena took a sip and declared that it tasted funny. I drank mine and said yes, the coffee had a sour note but it was ok. When Mena kept insisting that her coffee tasted funny, I ventured to take a sip and discovered that it indeed tasted terrible because the milk had gone off! I had filled my cup from a different jug so didn't realise it, but Indra whose coffee had the same milk had drunk her whole cup! Unbelievable but true :)

From our hotel, we walked to the Imperial Palace, the residence of the emperors of China. The movie 'The Last Emperor' had been filmed on site there. It was a huge complex constructed in 1420. The Imperial Palace is also known as the Forbidden City as common people were not allowed to enter the palace complex. The complex has a total of 8706 rooms and around 8000 to 10000 people including the emperor's concubines and eunuchs lived within its walls. It is the world's largest palace complex and altogether there are 9999 buildings within the complex. It is over 600 years old and was the royal residence of 14 Ming emperors and 10 Qing emperors. It has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.

One recurrent thought in my mind throughout the many sites we visted was how human hands could have built these great structures without the aid of technology. The bricks were actually made from white lime and glutinous rice while the cement was made from glutinous rice and egg whites. These incredible materials make the walls extraordinarily strong. The predominant colour in the Forbidden City is yellow as it was the royal colour. To construct the palace special stone had been ferried from the coastal regions. This cypress trees in the courtyard was specially trained to grow into intertwining trees to symbolise the union of the emperor and the empress. Not bad for a guy who had hundreds of concubines :)

Exiting the Forbidden City by the South Gate we entered the infamous Tiananmen Square with a huge portrait of Chairman Mao dominating the Square. It was from this Square that he had declared the establishment of the Communist Republic and here too that the student uprising had been held.

Then came what was soon to be a regular feature of our tour - a visit to a factory. The first one we were taken to was a silk factory where we were shown how the silk thread is unwound from the cocoon and how it is woven together. This type of demos are then followed by a soft sell of the final products - silk comforters, silk jackets etc.


The first of such visits was interesting and we were all very intrigued but when we got taken on such factory visits at every stop it became very tiresome. We tried saying we were not interested in the tour but this was met with different reactions ranging from sulky faces to repeated insistence that it was interesting and we would be sorry we missed it. It was only when we got to Shanghai and got a newbie for a guide that she let on that it was compulsory for the guides to take us to these places and that they would get into trouble if they didn't. She advised us to just go in and come out again as all they were interested in was the head count!

After lunch we went to the Temple of Heaven where more walking awaited us. The Temple was built by the Ming emperors as a place where they could make offerings to the gods. A unique aspect of the building is that it is round while the courtyard surrounding it is square, symbolising the belief of the ancient Chinese that heaven was circular and that the earth was square.

But the best part of today was our visit to a quack Chinese physician! :) After all the walking we had done today, the guide's offer of a free foot massage was too good to resist. So we all said yes. The catch? While we were having our feet massaged a guy in a white coat came around with an interpreter claiming to be able to tell by feeling our pulse what ailments we had and what Chinese herbs we should take. To tell thetruth, we were prepared to be impressed by his prowess after the glowing testimonials given by theguide but unfortunately for him the first one he chose to diagnose was the doctor in the group and she was NOT impressed :) So we all listened politely while he diagnosed all of us with poor blood circulation and prescribed the same ginseng to all of us as well as upset Padma by telling her she had high blood pressure but completely omitting the diabetes she did have. Hahaha. The moment we had all had our pulse taken, the foot massages ceased. Ah well, it was good while it lasted.

Our second day in China ended with watching a Peking Acrobatic Show which was really good. Unfortunately, the photos I took did not come out.