Sunday, April 21, 2013

Tiantan (The Temple of Heaven)

        Last full day before my mom and husband head back home.  I thought it would be cool for my husband to take the kids to the park he always played at when he was a kid, Tiantan aka The Temple of Heaven.  We didn't even try for a taxi today and went straight to the bus stop.
This bus route took us past the neighborhood of his childhood home.  Torn down several years ago to make way for stores and an apartment complex.  Off to a good start, we got haw on a stick and ice cream and it's not even noon yet!  My kind of day.  Tao isn't this sentimental and would rather have stayed home.    More walking, there is long shaggy grass not for walking and a normal cut grass area for people to sit or walk on.  Too early yet for flowers to be open.  The kids did enjoy weaving around he trees, leaving a cloud of dust as they ran through the grass.  Seriously!
        This place is mainly known for it's Echo wall.  My husband said it does work, he used to play in here all the time, before you had to pay to come here.  But now there is a fence preventing people from touching it, so you can't get close enough for a proper echo.  Way too crowded to hear anything anyway.  My kids think Echo like echo, echo, echo.  I tried to explain it's more like a talking phone, you talk here and it says it further down for someone else to hear.  If you want to try it, go on a weekday early in the morning.
Public bathrooms drive me nuts.  Besides the no toilet paper, no soap and cold water only, they don't wait in a normal line.  Instead of waiting in line in the order you come, they push to stand at a separate stall door and wait for that 1 door to open.  They wear so many layers here and take so long to go, it's annoying.  Sometimes if the doorway is small enough I stand with legs and arms spread open to stop them form entering and pushing in front of me.  They don't like this.  Tough.  
Sometimes I think they don't know any better, this is how they were raised. Then I think that is not an excuse, don't they want better?  (
So in their culture you don't talk, sit by(if can be avoided), or look at a strange man you don't know.  So they only have 1 child whom they let their parents raise or take to their home store/restaurant with them.  They have this small business to pass on to the child.  They can only socialize with those they know from school or families in their same deprived situation.  To carry on this small family business and take care of their parents.  To me not based on love for your family, but on guilt and pressure.  You must get married and have a kid, you must take care of me because I fed and took care of you.  So never mind when you get married there is only 1 kid taking care of 2 families besides their own family.  Times are changing on the news the country kids are heading for the city leaving their families behind.  So what do they do, instead of wanting their kids to be all that they can be, sue them for not taking care of them.  Wow.  I can't imagine growing up the child of a vegetable stand owner and know that is all I'll ever be my whole life.  And the cycle goes on and on.)  The price of thinking for oneself!  My kids all have coughs and I'm constantly telling them to cover their mouth.  Ethan told me, no one else does.  I told him that is why you are sick, we need to be better and cover our mouths.  (If you don't already, please start coughing into your elbow when the need arises.)


























Chinese Ethnic Culture Park


Another reoccurring theme, no taxis found.  So off to the bus stop for a long bus ride to the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park.  I was surprised that the ticket lady yelled at people to get up so each of us could sit down with a kid.   One nice thing about having kids, they usually will get up for you to sit down!
 Neat place to go to see 56 of the Chinese nationalities in one  place.  It sounded a little Greenfield Village.  No longer in the slack season, we paid full price to see both the north and south parts of the park.  We saw several school groups as we arrived.  Not many people about though.  A relatively new park about 2002.  Old houses and relics moved from their provinces to this park.
We got to see several shows.  Outside they had a lot of seating set up.  They displayed a specific cultures dancing and singing.  At the end of some of the performances they asked the audience to come up and learn/participate in the dancing.  My youngest went up all my himself!  I was so surprised and proud.  I did try the pole jumping(think jump roping with bamboo canes).  Ethan and Aidan went up for the dancing at the last performance before we left!  One performance they did not ask for audience participants was the climbing of the knife pole.  Bare foot on the blade of the swords!  Ouch!
            We could see the Bird's Nest and The Cube across the street.
































































The Great Wall


The first time I went to the Great Wall we took a tour bus in Chinese.  It was an all day event, stopping at 2 sections of the  Great Wall and the Ming Tombs.  The cost was straight transportation and did not include entrance fees.  
This time my husband researched how to get there, since I wanted to take the kids.  They know what the Great Wall is, it was in their Minnie goes to China book, plus they saw it out the window from the plane.  We were going to take  a train.  How nice to sit down and watch the countryside go flying by.
We left the house 2 hours till train departure.  Couldn't get 2 taxi's let alone 1 taxi to stop, so we took the bus to the subway.  Transferred subway lines and at the stop before the one we needed, everyone was told to get off.  This is the first time I've experienced this.  When asked why, they said every other train is sent back to the train yard for repair/check-up?  How inconvient!  So now instead of a seat on a fairly empty car, we got onto an already filled car.  Good thing we only had 1 stop to go.  
We are running down the platform to make the train with minutes to spare! No seats available, standing room only in the dinning car!  Oh well, we made it!  We got there at 12:30pm and froze.  Didn't think to bring winter hats or scarves.  Had to buy overpriced scarves for the boys, put their hoods up.  Got some meat on a stick and off to the cable car.  Our thought get roundtrip tickets at 80 rmb and walk a bit at the top before coming back down.  They told us they stopped selling roundtrip after noon, only one way.  It's 1 pm and people are coming down.  So either they are lying, or they want you to buy two 1-way tickets at 60 rmb each.  I refused and warned off every other foreigner we passed heading to the cable car.  
So we walked to the walking entrance of Badaling(this section of the Great Wall).  Kids only walked a short portion and went down with Tao to wait and snack.  My mom and I went up several lookouts more.  Lots of foreigners, not many speaking English though.  
The history:  Took 2,000 years to build approx 5,500 miles!  Started during the Warring State Period of 476 BC-221 BC through the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).  The part we see today is mainly from the Ming Dynasty.  In 2002 they did a survey and only 30% of the Great Wall remains in good condition.  




          Loving the train ride

           First View of the Wall

         Meat on a stick at the Great Wall





       Look how steep and how many people





















































Grave mounds