Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City

Another cloudy, hazy hot day we went down to T. square and the Forbidden City.

The square is large, but there isn’t much there. Most of the tourists we saw were Chinese, many of them with their children. It’s not exactly Disney World, so I thought it was strange. I guess it’s more like bringing kids to something in DC.

We took this picture and it took FOREVER for everyone to get situated and give their cameras to one central photo taker…. We were taking so long that a group of Chinese tourists started crowding around us and taking pictures of us getting our picture taking. Pretty embarrassing.

The Forbidden City was much more exciting.

First of all, it’s huge – about 2,362,205 square feet. It has 980 buildings. Does this give you an idea of how large it is?

This river runs through it, and I believe Arthur told us the river here runs from the Summer Palace. But, maybe I made that up.

This picture was taken before a complete downpour begun, soaking us all. It was a really pretty scene, and I felt like I had seen pictures of it before. Now I have m y own picture of it!

The Imperial Gardens were very impressive. I was enjoying them so much I completely lost the group. I had to go back to find them, and as soon as I did it started raining and we left. If I hadn’t gotten lost, I wouldn’t have seen the gardens. The elephant is from the garden, and you can see one of the cypress trees behind him.

That’s all I’ve got time for right now… more to come. :)

Lama Temple and Temple of Confucius

Our second day in Beijing, we went to the Lama Temple. Lama with one "l".

Work on the temple began in 1694 during the Qing Dynasty (I'm trying to learn Chinese History, so bear with this re-cap. I couldn't remember it all so some of this is from wikipedia) as an official residence of the prince's eunuchs and concubines. Eventually the prince ended up living there until he took the throne in 1722. After that, half became a lamasery (a monestary for Tibetan monks) and half remained palace.

The Lama Temple has a large gate, followed by a tree lined path, then several Halls with different buddhas inside.



The gate is guarded by two lions, male and female for balance. The male has his paw on a ball, the female has her paw on a cub. I'm a big fan of the lions.

I'll have to do my best to describe because these are active religious grounds and pictures inside the temples was not allowed. The first golden buddha is a very large, fat, happy buddha in the center with the four Heavenly Kings along the sides. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Heavenly_Kings ) I thought the kings were pretty interesting. The each held a lot of meaning, in the colors of their faces, what they were holding, and their position in the temple. Wikipedia can tell you more if you're interested.

Most of the other halls had three fit-looking bronze buddhas in the center. They were the Buddhas of the Three Ages, the statue of the Gautama Buddha (Buddha of the Present) is in the center, with the Kasyapa Matanga (Buddha of the Past, right) and the Maitreya Buddha (Buddha of the Future, left). There were life size statues of men on the sides. I can't remember what they were for.

The Grande Finale though was the last buddha. He's in The Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happinesses. (I can't even imagine that much happinesses) This buddha is also on the skinnier side but he's over 85 feet tall! He's covered from a single piece of white sandalwood and was included in the Guiness Book of Records in 1993. This is not the largest buddah, of course, but it is one of the tallest.

As I mentioned before, this is an active religious site. There are prayer wheels. These large drums hold prayers. In Buddhism, it is believed motion brings prayers to heaven. That is why prayers are written on flags that wave in the wind or spinnable objects like this drum. Also, there were lots of people burning three sticks incense at a time. Three is an important number. (You can see the incense smoke in the picture)

From the Lama Temple we went to the Temple of Confucius. They had a very cute gift shop, but I wasn't sure what I wanted so no purchases were made. The trees were also beautiful. One cypress had an interesting story. I was really tired by this point, while I walked around a little I really enjoyed sitting and just enjoying the garden.

The next day we headed to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City so that evening we just went back and studied and went to bed. In fact, I've got to get to tomorrow's reading so I'll blog more about all that later.

Please write comments folks, otherwise I think no one cares.

Arriving in China

The Flight
The flight was just over 13 hours. Despite the fact that on the plane there were 160 loud and excited high school choir kids, along with their equally enthusiastic chaperons, it didn't really seem that long. This is probably because the wine was free and I took a sleeping pill. According to the little "where in the world is this plane" map they showed us in-flight, we didn't take the route I thought we would. We flew northwest out of the airport (but I could still see my apt. building on the way towards the lake!) and north along lake Michigan. Then I feel asleep. Then we were flying over ICE BURGS!
On the way in from the airport you can really see the work that's gone into the Olympic preparation. There is beautiful new landscaping everywhere and the airport is immaculate. It's a little like a brand new, high end shopping mall. People have been so friendly. So far, I've only picked up "hello" in Chinese. I'm getting really good at gestures though.

The weather is really hot and humid. There is a constant haze. They've told us China is practicing to control the weather at the Olympics, so they are "seeding" the clouds with partials. Moisture collects on these particles and is then heavy enough to fall as rain. They are hoping to seed the clouds right before the ceremonies to have clear skies. Right now though it just seems to worsen the issues of smog and haze.

We had a group dinner when we all got in. It was the most Chinese Restaurant looking restaurant I've ever seen. Does that make sense? :) They ordered for us so I really have no idea what I've eaten so far.










This morning we took a tour of campus. This is the building where the library is and where I"ll have class. (I have pink hiking pants on because we're going to the temple, and they were the only pants I brought that weren't jeans.) The artifacts in the library are all real, and very old. These cute little statues are about 2000 years old! There is only internet in the library and in the coffee shop across the street. The coffee shop is very cute. It's boutique-y. The menu has "Western" things on it with English words. It's a nice alternative when I've had all the mystery food I can handle. :)

We toured some temples today too, but I'll have to look through my materials to figure out what we saw and then I can put those pictures up.

Dublin

We took a train across the country to Dublin. It was a really nice way to travel for several hours. We could just nap and watch the countryside, cows, and sheep go by.

When we pulled into the station the first thing we saw was the St. James brewery where they produce Guinness. There is a tour of the old brewery facility. It's great! They show you pretty much how they make Guinness from the ingredients, to the processing, brewing, packaging, and marketing. There is no guide, it's all media as you go up and up into the building. At the very end there is a bar where they pour a pint of "perfect" Guinness. Eoghan thinks it should have had more love in the pour, but it was pretty tasty and you can see his glass is empty. The view was amazing. The bar was set up with the Guinness in the center, and a 360 degree view of the Dublin. It was a beautiful circular room entirely walled by windows.



We left, found the U.S. embassy where Eoghan would have to go renew his Visa early the next morning (it's a really tacky building that looks like a beach-side motel 8, circa 1972), dropped our stuff at the B&B, and found Lizzie. The B&B had a nice view of the colored doors we saw all over the city, as well as the Palm Trees. Did you know Ireland was a tropical island?

Lizzie was a lot of fun! She showed us some nice pubs in the area, and she mostly told stories and her and Eoghan caught up.

The next morning, after a meat-fast downstairs, Eoghan went to the embassy to do his thing and I walked off to Grafton St. I past St. Stephen's Green on my way. We had a chance to see the lights on Grafton the previous night, and they were beautiful! Thousands of tiny white and blue lights spell out holiday wishes in Irish, with a strob-ish light mixed in ever so often. Grafton St. has great shopping and is completely pedestrian.








After some shopping we moved on to see Trinity College, founded in 1592. Eoghan studied there after high school, and it's a beautiful campus.






After Trinity, we did some more exploring and got some lunch before heading back to the west side of the country. Some fish and chips, then back to the train!

Back from Dublin but off again..

Dublin was great! We met up with Eoghan's old college friend, Lizzie and she was a lot of fun. She has some great stories that you could only describe as "lester -like". Pictures up soon!

No time to update more now. We're headed out on Surprise trip to Scotland! Next post from GLASGOW. :)

Lahinch Beach

I thought by going to bed early last night, I would wake up at a reasonable time. 1:30 pm is hardly what I expected. Anyway, we were up soon enough to have have some homemade brown scones and head out to watch the sunset on the beach.

The waves were large by my Lake Michigan standards. We saw some surfers.



These are more pictures from the walk:
Picasa Web Album - Meaghan's Ireland trip

Just me:


Just Eoghan:













Dublin tomorrow!

Birthday Pub Crawl

One of the saddest parts of leaving is that Henry can't come to Ireland. We were both a little depressed when he was helping me pack.

Technically though, he can come. However, he would have to get a "Pet Passport" and that has 14 pages of requirements. Seriously, 14 pages. It is easier to get a people passport. Additionally, because he would be in the cargo part, it can't be less then 45 degrees outside at departure - not realistic in Chicago in December. While you might be surprised to know he would be a eligible for riding in the cabin, weight wise, pets aren't allowed on transatlantic flights. Babies are though. I promise, he's quieter and better behaved then the babies. We briefly contemplated putting him in my suitcase, but ultimately decided against it.

I know he's having a great time at Heidi's though. Running, playing, squeaking. He could hardly contain his joy when they picked him up!

After our nap yesterday, we had a quick dinner and headed out to celebrate Eoghan's sister, Aoibhean's birthday.

There were several girls in the party - about 11-12. We bounced around to different places. The cider was excellent and I also tried a Swedish pear cider that was very good. At one of the bars I sat with Aoibheann and some of her friends while Eoghan found some "lads". The boys were sitting in front of a PRINGLES machine. I was amazed. It was this large gumball type machine with tubes of different Pringle flavors. Obviously, I needed to try it out. The sign said 2 Euro Coin. I got two euro coins and broke the machine. I tried two 1 euro coins. You're supposed to use 1 two euro coin. I can't figure out why you would have change worth that much... but I didn't design the monetary system.

The last place we ended up was sort of a club/disco that revels in it's own awfulness. For example, they played Christmas music and people still danced. After that we walked back to Eoghan's house - which is over a mile and all up hill. It was nice weather, so it was alright although a little scary. It's pitch black outside without any ambient light at all. Also, the roads are really narrow, so if a car came up fast you could die.

After I'd had a steady stream of cider, and Eoghan had Guinness and shots with the guys (it was a really nice shot of something I can't remember the name of, like liquorish and very sweat) we were pretty much gone. Eoghan's mom, Theresa met us at the door and I promptly fell over a suitcase and landed on the floor. Eoghan was too busy laughing at me to really see what I fell over, and fell over the same suitcase. HA. Then he fixed us a nice breakfast of sausages and toast, we took some Advil, and slept until 3pm.

This evening we went out for dinner at The Black Oak http://www.blackoakclare.com/ Honestly, one of the best restaurants I've ever been to. If you're checking out the menu (Heidi...:P ) I had the Crab Tart, French Onion Soup, Cod with Crab, and the Creme Brulee. The wine was Sancere. It's a French white wine that is very crisp and went really well with everything we were eating. Oh my god, it all tasted so good! I think my favorites are the Crab Tart and the desert. The deserts are all made on site by a pastry chef!

Well, after that big meal and more wine I'm pretty tired. I've come back here to the house and put on some flannel pjs. Eoghan still had energy left, so he's headed down to hang out with an old friend. I'm not sure what we're doing tomorrow, but Monday and Tuesday we'll be in Dublin! I'll take more pictures tomorrow, and post some non-Henry photos. :)