Nimen Hao!
What a busy day we had yesterday - more classes in the morning - Chinese Calligraphy and then Painting... very relaxing and calming, but we don't know if our shrimp look much like the real thing!For lunch we had a class in making dumplings - like large ravioli. We filled them with either a vegetable or a meat combination. Then it was back in the bus to drive into the heart of Beijing to visit the Forbidden City - the largest 'palace' in the world - built in the early1400s and subsequently the home of over 25 Emperors. It is a vast network of buildings, all laid out very symmetrically. They are beautiful but would have been very austere and cold to live in during the Beijing winters. The are surrounded by a 10metre wall which is still completely in tact, and a very wide moat. The emperors were pretty paranoid about their safety. They covered the courtyards in 15 layers of bricks so no-one could tunnel in!It was a windy day here yesterday - a really cold wind from Siberia in Russia. The advantage of the wind was that it blew the smog away and the sky was blue like a crisp Christchurch winters day - such a difference to the previous smoggy days!In the evening we went to a Hot Pot restaurant for dinner - hot pot is a self-cooking style of eating. At your table you have a large wok or pan that is sunk into the table with a gas ring underneath. The pan is filled with stock and all your food is brought to the table raw. You put the raw food into the boiling stock and in a few moments it is cooked and you pull it out and eat it with chopsticks - Yum, yum!Following dinner it was back to the university to learn about Tai Chi, paper cutting and to hear two different performances of musical instruments. A long but very interesting day.Today we are off to visit the Great Wall of China! The forecast is for about 8 degrees today, but they have told us to dress very warmly as the Great Wall is very exposed and often windy and cold...We have made lots of friends with teachers from many different countries.
They all think that I am quite cute (although one lady from Poland did think I was a kiwi!)
Talk to you again tomorrowPuji, Sue and Sandy
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