March 5

After flying for 17 hours and eating some airport food we finally made it to Beijing, China!!
We started out the day with breakfast at our hotel and then ventured out for a fun-filled day of learning. Our tour guide, Michelle, gave us some fun facts about Beijing.
-Population of 18 million
-5 million cars on the roads daily with limited opportunities of purchasing cars through a lottery system.
- Size is similar to New York City
-History orginated over 3000 years ago
-Beijing was originally named Pekin but was changed to Beijing in 1949
-Normal work day hours are 8:30-5:30 and school starts at 7:00
We planned on starting our day touring Tiananmen Square. However, because the National People's Congress and China's People Political Conservative Congress were meeting we only saw it from a distance. About 10,000 people were expected to attend the annual meeting, which increased police presence in the area.
The Forbidden City was our actual first stop . The Forbidden City is a expansive palace built in 1402 to house emperors. It was originally supposed to have 9,999 rooms, which is only one less than 10,000 rooms because 10 is the lucky number that symbolizes Heaven. After an actual counting, they realized it only has 8,704 rooms. As you get closer to the center of the Forbidden City we found more decorated rooms for the elite emperors. All of the buildings in the Forbidden City are decorated to represent the five elements of feng shui. Three of the buildings were named Preserving Harmony, Central Harmony, and Supreme Harmony, and all had a very specific function carried out in all of them. The buildings were consistently painted red to represent happiness and had many yellow accents to represent the earth. The Forbidden City is about 72 hectares, which is 178 acres. Although we felt like we covered the majority of those 178 acres it turns out we only walked about 1/5th of them, and much of the Forbidden City is not open to the public.
After a bus ride we made it to an older part of Beijing and got an excellent surprise!... we got to ride in a rickshaw, or commonly known as a petty cab! The rickshaw gave us a ride through a more traditional residential area of Beijing and took us to a local family's house for lunch. The husband of the house that prepared our food was the premier chef for the past president. Needless to say the food was excellent. We all had our moments but overall were successful with our chopsticks! After a short rickshaw ride back to the bus we went to the pearl market, which consisted of the jewelry, toy, and pearl market. For many of the products we had to bargain to get a fair price which proved to be a challenge for some while it came naturally to others. The market offered everything from pearls, to outdoor gear, to knock-off handbags.
We had another opportunity to practice our chopstick skills at supper. The Peking Duck, both the name of the restaurant and the meal we ate, was a fun experience topped off with fried ice cream. Overall it was a wonderful first day in Beijing and we can't wait for the many more adventures to come!!