A Hutong is a narrow street in Beijing that has small courtyard homes. Many of them are slums that are being cleared for newer construction. We were able to see a small alley of homes that are being kept up and actually some are being renovated. We took a rickshaw drive to a hutong area in the Ho Hi district. Below is a shutterfly about this excursion.

Rickshaw Ride Shutterfly

On the first leg of our flights home from Beijing I sat next to a young photographer that had just done a documentary on hutongs for PBS. Here is his link to a slide show he created.

Hutong Slide Show

In the following shutterfly link you will find pictures of a Cloisonne Factory which we were able to watch the whole process of pieces being designed and fired for purchase.

Factory Shutterfly

Let’s try this-I have created a shutterfly to show some of our pictures. You can click on the link below. Once the page shows up scroll down the page and click on View Album. Then click on Play Slideshow. In the top right hand corner click on Options. Last, put a check in the boxes Show Titles and Show Captions. (you should only have to do this once!)

These pictures will be about us seeing beach volleyball, track and field, diving and women’s softball.

The Tour Begins Shutterfly

Be sure to click on Previous Entries below to view all the other events in this blog.

I have just been notified that I do not have any more space left on this blog. So I will now create shutterflys for the rest of the pictures. Here is the shutterfly for the Great Wall.

Great Wall Shutterfly

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After a long day of tourism stops we were taken to a French style restaurant. This was a welcome change for many as they knew that they could get food they know they would eat. It was true and very good. We were seated at a long table which made is hard to visit with others, but it was a real treat for Western style food. After dinner we were taken by our hotel to prepare to check out and get ready for our last day in Beijing. We will go to the Temple of Heaven and then the closing ceremony tomorrow. What a trip this has been!

To go along with eating in many different places comes understanding bathrooms signs. Many of the bathrooms have both men and women sharing the same sinks with the toliets in separate rooms.

After previous challenges I made sure that I looked at the signs on the doors. Here are the ones in this restaurant-I had to look twice, but once I looked it was definite which one to go to!

This Buddhist temple was built during the Ming Dynasty for the emperors to pray in the fall for a good harvest. While the emperors were there for 3 weeks they would fast from alcohol, garlic and meat. This is the walkway that leads to the Temple.

It is the largest temple in China and built on a 675 park that is used by the Chinese citizens now to play, entertain and rest.

We visited on a Sunday morning so we encountered many of the locals entertaining each other. This reminded me of the the people outside in the St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter. The difference was that the Chinese did not have buckets for tips!

This restaurant was rated on the top 10 across the world and there is one in New York and one in Los Angeles. Dumplings are served at every meal in China, so these chefs have prepared them the way Westerners would like them.

Eric sat down and tried what he thought was crip noodles and it ended up being fresh ginger that burned his mouth. His eyes began to tear up.

Seasame Pork Dumplings were filled with vegetables and we really wanted more but opted to try some other kinds.

The shrimp dumplings that were shaped different but they were the best!

Here are a few of the menu items that we did not try because of their names.

Look what we had for dessert-can you guess what it is?

(A mound of cold shaved rice with beans in caramel and chocolate)

It was a good thing I did not see these chefs until after I ate-they are kinda scary looking in their masks. But look at it this way-they are not spreading any germs!

The Closing Ceremony was an explosive ending to our world-wind trip to China. We had 6th row seats that were on the opposite side of the stage, so we did not have the best vantage point for the production. It was very exciting seeing all the performers and athletes on the field with some music performers.

Sitting in the stands was very close and very, very hot, but it was fun to be with our new Panasonic friends.

The torch that burned during the Olympics was extinguished and another one will be lite when the next Olympics begins.

A London bus came through the staging area and inside was David Beckham, a soccer player from England, came out and kicked a ball to prepare London to get ready for the next summer games.

A tower of perfomers was built to represent the torch glowing for the strength for all the athletes that competed int these games.

Ribbon panels dropped from the top of the tower to represent the fire from the torch.

As the torch’s flame rose a series of fireworks exploded all around. The first explosion kind of made us a little nervous, but when more went off we knew that more fireworks would be coming.

We were so fortunate to have seen such a exciting show at the end of our trip. We will spend time reflecting over all the different activities we have done together with this wonderful opportunity that was given to us by Panasonic.

In the last 6 days we have used a pedometer to determine how many miles we walked on our trip. Would you believe we have walked over 35 miles on this trip to all the events and site-seeing tours. Because the schedule was made for a true Olympian I have slept only 27 hours. With China blocking this blog site I will now try to go back through our experiences for the last few days. We are sitting in the Tokoyo airport waiting for our long flight across the ocean and the states. So once I get home you will be able to see what adventures we have had. In our group of attendees sponsored by Panasonic we had 4 employees and their families, 8 couples that were awarded the trip through their sales of cameras, and we had one family that wrote in for a contest about how they would use technology with their family. They were from Tennessee and brought two of their 4 children. Their oldest daughter Rebecca kept at journal the whole time we were gone on a blog site that was not blocked. Here is the address so you can see our trip from a child’s point of view. http://seamansinchina.blogspot.com

We have arrived in Tokoyo after our 11 1/2 hour flight from Minneapolis. It was really very comfortable and the service was tremendous as they gave us food and drinks for 3 hours and then it was time to settle down for rest. Our chairs were like recliners with remotes and the TV screens were attached to our side seats and you could stretch out completely to lay down. Since we were flying west outside it never got dark and I found it very hard to sleep and Cliff on the other hand slept most of they way. I must have slept because I missed the mid-flight snack of rootbeer float or pizza. Breakfast was served and now we are waiting to go to Beijing. We will have a very full day on Wednesday with two events and touring. Once we get to the hotel we will find out what our definite desintations are.

We left Tokoyo for another 4 hour trip to the Beijing airport. Once we went through customs etc. a bus carried us to the hotel and we were greeted with hotel employees giving us bags of treats and a wonderful hospitality room.

Now, to let you know how long it took us to get to the hotel-would you believe it was 32 hours of which there was very little sleep. We have to be downstairs at 7 am to begin our first Olympic venues. We are to see men’s semi-finals beach volleyball (yea!!!!) and I am not sure what else we will do. Time to try to catch a few hours sleep.