The Forbidden City and more.....

Today, we went to The Forbidden City and Tianamen Square, then we went on a Rickshaw tour through Hutong, which is a historical part of Beijing, very close to the Forbidden City.  After the rickshaw tour we had a great lunch at a local restaurant, now I can say we have had some good authentic Chinese food.  We stuffed ourselves!  After lunch we went to the Silk Factory and learned how they make silk fabrics, from the silk worm, and then the last thing we did was see the popular Acrobat show, which was amazing!  Sylvia said that the acrobats in Beijing are the best from all over China.  Here are some pictures from our day......

Tiananmen Square

 

The middle entrance to the Forbidden City is blocked, this was the entrance only the emperor would enter through and the empress could only enter through it one time in her life, her wedding day.....The second entrance was for the 2nd level of male officials, and the third entrance was for those ranking between 3-5 or 6, I think there were 9 total, if you were on the 7th level of officials or below, you were not allowed into the Forbidden City. This is just the first gate of 2 before you even get to the Conference Hall.

 This is where the guards live that raise and lower the flags every day for the Forbidden City.....

This is an honor.....Sylvia said that these guards are very handsome and have gone through the most boots because of all of their marching....

 This is the second courtyard and the second gate.  

Only certain ranking officials were allowed into this courtyard.

 This is the main Conference Hall.  The middle door is closed, so we couldn't really see the Emperor's Throne.

 These floors in the main Conference Hall are over 400 years old.

 These columns on the stairs are also original and over 400 years old.

 The closed doors.

 This is his throne in the smaller conference room.

 This is the gardens in the very back of the Forbidden City.

 These doors are huge!

 The last Emperor of the Ming Dynasty hanged himself at this temple on the top of the hill because he lost the city to the peasants.  If they lost the city they had to die!  The Ting Dynasty soon defeated the peasants and were the last dynasty to occupy the Forbidden City and the last Emperor's of China were from the Ting dynasty.  Yesterday we went to the Summer Palace, which was built by the Ting dynasty because Beijing was too hot for them.

 This is a closer shot of the temple where he killed himself.

 This is cotton candy, isn't it pretty.  I was going to get some, until Sylvia told me it had lead in it.........

 This is a street that has bars down both sides of the river that is supposedly a pretty popular night spot.  I just wanted a picture of the reggae bar in the middle of a historic Chinese town....:-)

 These pictures are from the Silk Factory.

 Those are cocoons that the silk worms are in.  The cocoons are the actual silk.

 Here they are stretching the silk out.

This is the lifecycle of a silk worm, from eggs til they are moths, in which they mate, the male dies, the female lays eggs, and then she dies, they live about 60 days.

 The acrobat show was awesome.  It was much like Cirque de Soleil.

Only 1 more sleep!!!! Tomorrow's post is sure to be the best!!! Please pray for us!  Pray for her heart to accept us and let us love her and soon love us.  Also, please pray for us and her to have safe travels to our meeting point.  It is suppose to snow and we are all going by train......