This morning we got up early, met Juyan and headed to the metro. We went to see two temples before heading off to Beijing. First was a Buddhist temple. It’s a series of temples to various gods. There were monks walking around in orange clothes as well as many people to pray and offer things. It’s a beautiful peaceful place in the middle of such a large busy city.
From there we went to the Chen Family Temple. This was also a series of buildings but they are much more ornately decorated. Juyan explained that this one was used for family meetings and was to show the power and prestige of the family explaining the ornamentation. They also had some exhibits of carved ivory that were very interesting to look at.
Then we headed back to the hotel so we could meet Rachel, our interpreter, and head to the airport. We landed in Beijing two hours delayed because we had to sit on the runway and wait for clearance. The three-hour flight was fine otherwise. The food was actually good so we really enjoyed that while we were waiting on the runway. When we landed Rachel’s husband Mike met us along with two of Rachel’s friends from her class. They took us to our hotel and after getting settled we went out to dinner.
They explained that rice is more common in the south whereas noodles are more common in the north so we went out for noodles. Dinner was great and as usual we ended up trying a lot of new things both good and not so good. The noodles we ate had vegetables on top along with pork in a sauce that we mixed in. They ordered a few dishes to share of beef, cucumbers, and a variety platter. I don’t know what else to call it, it was an array of small with sweet sticky rice in the middle.
From there Rachel’s friends left and the rest of us took taxi’s to the Bird’s Nest, where the 2008 Olympics where held. Both the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube are very unique buildings with a lot of wonderful open space between them. In such a large city it’s nice to have space like that.
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