Alice picked us up at our hotel at 8 am and we drove about 15 minutes to the Temple of Heaven. This is where the Emperor would come to pray for Good Harvest. Although this Temple and the grounds surrounding it were only used twice a year, it was forbidden to the common people.
Temple of Heaven
It is now a park. During our visit we saw lots of locals playing hacky sack, cards, dancing, exercising, singing, and much more. It was neat to see so many locals enjoying their morning.
The locals dancing with swords.
After visiting the Temple we went on a Hutong Tour. Some of the older Hutongs (narrow streets) are being preserved by the government as many others are being converted into apartments. We had another tour guide that walked us along these streets and told us about the lives of the locals.
River along the Hutongs
We took about a 15 minute cycle rickshaw ride to a local home where we were served lunch.
On our Cycle Rickshaw. This man peddled us around.
It was a very clean home that the travel agency recommend. The food was divine! We had 5 different dishes! Kaitlyn enjoyed playing with the ladies while we ate.
This is the niece of the lady who cooked for us. They didn't speak any English. I'm glad our guide was with us! They were very nice.
After we ate, we learned how the ladies paint bottles from the inside. This is what they sell at the local market. It was interesting to watch.
She paints pandas, dragons, birds, all from the inside.
We then took the cycle rickshaw back to meet Alice and then back to the hotel to let Kaitlyn rest.
After she woke up we took a walk down the road to the “Food Street”. This is where they fry everything! There were lots of stalls selling many of the same things: fruit, squid, snake, beetles, starfish. It was very interesting to see. Alice said the meat has probably been outside all day and is probably not fresh. We opted not to try any. Then we thought, Does it really matter if beattles are fresh or not??
Doesn't this look yummy?!? The top picture is squid. The second one is, beetles, snakes and centipede. If you dare...you can click on the picture to make it larger.
Here is a slideshow of our day.
2 comments:
Hey Kara,T.J.,Kaitlyn,
It looks like yaull vacation was awesome......cant wait to hear more about it. We love the picture of Kaitlyn surrounded by all those people...that is just hysterical...although we know she already is a star.....we are soooo lonesome for yaull thanks so much for the blogging you do a great job keeping us up to date with katy kate...love yaull The Bares'
That is so awesome. I can't wait to see more.
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