Day 4 - Beijing

What can you say about the capitol city of the worlds most populated country??? Pollution, industry, high rises, and as many old bikes and motorized bikes as there are cars sharing the road. This is the BIG city. There are 22 million people in Beijing and 1.3 billion in China...very hard to comprehend given that Birmingham has about 1 million people if you count all of the suburb population! Beijing has so much history and the ancient meets the industrial here. They are preparing at every corner for the Olympic Games in 2008. There is renovation and construction going on everywhere. On our first day in Beijing, we met our guide Mr. Lei and we went to the Lama Temple which used to be the palace home of one of the emporer's sons or a prince. The residence was given to the Dali Lama and has been open to the public and is used as a center for buddhism since. It was beautiful, but we found it very hard to understand this religion at its core. After the Lama Temple, we went to a silk factory then on to participate in a traditional tea ceremony, which was fabulous. We are missing the boat on good tea in the US. Our stuff just cannot compare. We went to have a great meal that cost us a grand total of $12 US dollars for 8 people to eat! After our meal we went to the Temple of Heaven, which was spectacular. This was the place that the emporers would come to pray to the heavens...hence the only place where the emporer was ever a servant. It was complete with sacrificial urns and burning pots...very interesting and just amazing.