Touring in Beijing

Sunday Morning March 19, 2006 2:16am
Well, we are both awake; we woke up about 1:30am. Chris is watching a Bruce Willis movie and I am here entering this update. (It will probably be late Sunday evening before I post though). I realized after I woke up that we will have Hannah Joy in our arms in a little over 36 hours. I pray that her transition will go well and that her foster parents have prepared her for what is coming. I am also thinking about our kids at home, Jonathan, Aaron, and Sarah. We haven't been able to actually talk to them yet, but have left two messages for them. Our friends who are keeping them say they miss us but are doing well.
We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Tien An Men Square and the Forbidden City yesterday. Chris was enthralled with all of the architectural details. Donna was overwhelmed at the sheer amount of labor required to build such a city. Our guide said they completed the city in 14 yrs. It is 178 hectares (if I remember right) big. This is a phenomenal accomplishment in such a short period of time. The gardens were very nice even though much was dormant due to the season. Ike explained that the city was originally built with 9999 rooms. This is because there are 10,000 rooms in heaven and since the emperor was the son of god, he wanted almost as many rooms. Today only about 8500 rooms still exist. Ike also explained that the city is paved with 15 layers of bricks. The first layer is East-West and the second layer North-South and so on for the 15 layers. This was done to ensure that a would-be assassin could not get into the city via an underground tunnel. Ike also explained that the Chinese philosophy of Feng Shui requires that the city have water at the entrance and a hill or mountain at the back. Since Beijing is on a plain, the mountain had to be made. So, when they dug the moat around the city for the water, they dumped all the dirt at the back, creating the needed hill. At one spot, Ike showed us a single carved stone which was transported from a location 46 miles away from the city. The stone weighed over 200 tons. He said it took 20,000 people to move it. He explained that at some parts of the journey, the workers would drill wells and allow the water to bubble up and then freeze on the ground. This made a giant ice sled for the stone to move down.
The Great Wall is another labor intensive undertaking. Just to look at one small section makes you realize the enormity of this project. The Western Mountain wall is the steepest section at Badaling. This is the part we undertook. If any of you are "The Amazing Race" fans, this is where the teams a few seasons ago were given a key to a lock and had to find the lock to which it belonged. No small task when there are over 3000 locks on a chain hanging on the wall. Our guide explained that when a couple gets married, they come up here and place a lock on the chain. It symbolizes that the two of them are now "locked" together in marriage.
To climb the wall is a very difficult task. The steps are very uneven with one step having a rise of 12" and the next step only 4" The stones are worn at the edges of the stairs where the hand rails are installed. The altitude combined with the steep incline result in difficult breathing in a very short time. The weather was perfect for our touring; it was sunny and a high of 53. We were quite warm even with the brisk wind. At first, I wondered why the wall was built in this particular location as it is not on the ridgeline of the mountains. But then as I looked around, I realized that there is a mountain pass here and the wall is built perpendicular to this pass. This provides protection in both directions from anyone in the pass.