Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Observatory and people scenes of interest

7/22/2008

In the morning we visited an observatory built in the 1600's. The Chinese were great astronomers. In these pictures are an eclipse viewing device and they recorded over 1000 occurrences of eclipses.




Also, just some other items that caught my eye. 4 boys fixing a bicycle, why upside down, I don't know, but they were so cute.


Tai Ball in the park. A take off of Tai Chi using a ball and paddle. The objective is not to bat the ball back and forth, but to catch it, keep it on the paddle with centrifugal forces and toss back gently, almost a dance.


In the afternoon, after touring, I went for a trip on the Beijing Subway alone to pick up some blouses at a tailor shop. The subway was clean, safe and well marked, so I had no trouble getting to the Silk Market and back.



Afterwards, I and other tour group members got together for dinner. We wanted something 'authentic' chinese and were recommended to a nearby restaurant, with a speciality in "hot pot". Sort of a Mongolian style soup, where you select items to drop into the very hot soup to cook.

More tomorrow.
TMBWitW

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