Trip of a Lifetime - Day 4 -

What a day this has been! Before I get started on the events of the day, I want to mention how much security we have here at the China World. You can only go to your floor on the elevators and you must put your room key in a slot in the elevator before it will start. There are gentlemen who work for the hotel who all know each guest by name and they open the elevator door for you and then will help you use your key if that is necessary.

By the same token, when you get on the elevator to come down, it won't start until you have inserted your key and only stops on the public floors, not the ones where other rooms are. They don't want anyone in the hotel who isn't supposed to be there. I found this to be extraordinary and it gives you a very nice feeling of security. It's like the gated community where we stay in Santa Fe where no one can come to your condo without their name being left at the gate. You have no surprise visitors.

We started our day at 8:00 a.m. with our Viking guide, Helen, and 29 other fellow travelers were escorted to a bus where our first destination of the day would be Tianamen Square. It is a huge place and a very long walk. I made the mistake of not getting a wheelchair and "driver" so I had a hard time.

They let us off the bus at the FAR end of the square and we walked the entire length of it. The square is 880 meters (2887 feet) south to north and 500 metres (1640 feet) east to west, a total area of 440,000 square metres (108.7 acres), which makes it the largest open-urban square in the world.

From there we crossed under the main street (up and down MANY steps) and ended up in the middle of the main wall to the Gate of the Imperial City and the Forbidden City.

For the next two hours we walked constantly, stopping only briefly to snap a few photographs. The Forbidden City occupies 720,000 square meters and it felt as though we walked every inch of it even though we barely scratched the surface. Both the City and the Square are so vast that you to have been there to appreciate the vastness of these two places. Since we entered at one end and had to exit at the other to get to our bus, there were no shortcuts! You had to walk the whole distance.

From there we went to the Capital Hotel for a buffet lunch and then on to the Summer Palace. We were blessed as they let us take the Dragon Boats both to and from the Palace rather than walking there and taking the boat back! That saved us a LOT of steps. While we were there a man came and sat beside me and carved the place, date and my name in Chinese on my cane. It looks great! I'll always think of that experience when I use it and the little man who did this for me.

The Marble Boat above is also known as the Boat of Purity and Ease. It was first erected in 1755 during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. The original pavilion was made from a base of large stone blocks which supported a wooden superstructure done in a traditional Chinese design. In 1860, during the Second Opium War, the pavilion was destroyed by Anglo-French forces. It was restored in 1893 on order of the Empress Dowager Cixi.

I forgot to mention that we visited with a man and his son in The Forbidden City and they shared some of their rice cookies with us and wanted to take our photograph. In turn we took theirs. It was a neat experience. They were very interested in Frank and his age. The son spoke a little English but the man did not. He was only 52 years old! They didn't say a lot to me since it is mainly a male dominated society. I did get to have some of the cookies though ;-)

From there we went to the Summer Palace where we spent about an hour and a half and then drove through rush hour traffic so we could get back to the hotel in time to shower, dress and go to a Peking Duck dinner and the Beijing Opera.

In my opinion the dinner was not the best (and I like duck) but the opera was fun and the beauty of the whole evening was that we were back at the hotel a little after 10 and were in bed by 10:30. This was only our first day with Viking and our adventure is only beginning. We'll be off on another adventure tomorrow and we're still in Beijing, so stay tuned. By the way, someone in our group had a pedometer and we walked over 7 miles that day! Pcasso