Confetti: Notes from Beijing, Day 2

A print from the inside of our hotel room. The style looked familiar and indeed it was the same artist as one of the postcards I had brought with me (because there just be no postcards in Beijing :P). This one is called the Forbidden City.

Toll booth on the way to the jade museum.

Inside the jade museum, decorations on the wall and some artifacts under glass:

Tang Dynasty jade musician.

Bronze bird-style wine vessel from Shang Dynasty.

Jade carvings in the showroom:

(Lef) Bok choy is a classic subject because it is a homonym for "one-hundred treasures". For optimal feng shui placement the leaves should face the outdoors and the roots inside to draw treasures inward.

The guide takes one of our group to demonstrate how to find the right fit for jade bangle - the diameter should be the same as the width of your pointer, middle, and ring finger knuckles together.

Bangles are traditionally worn on the left wrist - over an accupuncture point that relates to the heart.

More information about jade from our guide:

- There are 1,200 varieties, with varying soft/hardness

- Popular kinds of jade include "White" jade, and "Silk" jade (transparent, uniform in colour, luminous, from NE China)

- Softer jades are more suitable for carving

- Harder jades are more often used in jewelry

- The hardest jade, "Jadeite", has hardness of 8.3 (in a scale where diamond is 10), is the most valuable in darker colours, and is a "living jade" (said to improve / change with wearing)

(Left: Gorgeous carving of 8 longevity storks with the dark jade spots in just the right places - I believe they are this kind.)

(Right: Monkeys stealing peaches - love their expressions)

With two bangles she also taught us a couple of ways of determining real and fake pieces, and the age and quality of two real pieces:

1. Real jade is cold to the touch.

2. Under bright light, real jade has a cloudy ("flower") pattern, while glass and plastic are completely clear and may have air bubbles.
3. Compare the sound of after a light hit - real pieces should give a high clear sound.

On 20 minute drive to the Wall Miss Huang touched up on more trivia:

- China's land mass can be said to be in the shape of rooster - Beijing is where the heart would be

- The Great Wall is 600 miles from end to end and was built in different time frames, starting in Qin, building through Han, and then Ming (when the section we were visiting was built).

- The Wall is one of the Seven New Wonders of the World

- It was built to keep barbarians out of the China

- China is made up of 90% of the Han tribe, and 10% of other minorities

Lisa and Lucy look out of tower one.

People leaving their mark.

Views from the second tower:

Worn steps inside the tower.

Looking up to the other towers:

Looking back down to where I was:

Going just a little further to reach (the rather cheesy) Great Wall Hero's plateau:

Ancient weapons on display.

Safe, back in the car park.

Near the wall, on the way the way to our lunch destination, we pass farms. Corn is the main grain grown here.

The abandonned Disney theme park looked rather sad. We were told it building started about 10 years ago, but was never completed.

Lunch was here, and then we went to wander for souveniers in the Friendship Store.

Mom's outfit matches nicely with the porcelain display in the breezeway between restaurant and Friendship Store.

Designs on a wall to the grounds of the Summer Palace - the summer getaway for Empress Dowager Cixi.

Lisa, Lucy, and Momo.

The Seventeen Arch Bridge framed inside the lattice of the small bridge.

Mr. Lee (in a rather slang Hong Kong-nese) told us part of the legends of Empress Dowager Cixi. She was apparently a very smart woman. As a servant in the palace, there was very little chance for her to even meet the emperor. But the story goes, in three years of working in the place, she'd figured out exactly how to get his attention, placing herself in a spot where he could hear her singing. This was enough to pique his interest to meet her.

From there on, she managed to gain favour, jumping up the palace hierarchy until she eventually pushed out the emperors official first wife by having a son and manipulation.

As evidenced by the Summer Palace - Cixi loved beautiful things. Her extravagance continued into death. She was supposed covered in a blanket that had 22,000 embroidered pearls, the famed "Night Glowing" pearl was in her mouth. Also entombed with her (along with other jewels and finery) was her favourite jade watermelon carving.

If we were interested in seeing these sort of items, Mr. Lee recommended we go to "The Forbidden City in Taibei". No emperors ever lived there, but many artifacts and jewelry from The Forbidden City had been moved there.

The "Bat Pavillion"

Note two languages displayed on signs.

From the plaque: "This statue of a kylin was cast during the reign of Emperor Quianlong. The kylin was an auspicious legendary animal that had the power to punish evil and reple the wicked. Its form is peculiar: dragon head, lion tail, ox hooves [,] deer antlers and scales all over its body."