China Update

I am having so much fun here.  We have been super busy so I haven't been able to update in a while.  Last week, we finished up the theory behind TCVM and over the weekend we had our sight-seeing tour of Beijing.

The first day we traveled through Beijing and learned the history of China's Dynasties.  We visited the World Heritage Site of the Summer Palace outside of Beijing.  This Palace was built as a gift to the emperor's mother and includes a 2.2 square kilometer man-made lake and the Long Corridor that is over 700 meters long.  We also visited the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven.  Both of these sites are within the city of Beijing and are continuously being restored.  The amazing bard of the two sites is though Beijing has had earthquakes that have toppled the majority of the city's high-rises at some point, the Temple of Heaven have never been destroyed by an earthquake.  This is because the completely wooden structure "sits" on the surface of the earth and is not cemented in place.  When an earthquake occurs the building shakes like a table on each of its leg instead of breaking apart.  We finished the day at Tienanmen Square which is the location of Mao's speeches and the only public square in the world that can fit 600,000 people.

The second day I was able to check off another Wonder of the World off of my bucket list.  I climbed the Great wall of China.  It was not what I thought it would be.  The section that we traveled was mostly unrestored, so that means we were going up and down inclines without handrails, with the rocks sliding underfoot, crumbling stairs and an outstanding view of the mountain sides.  On top of the already perilous wall, Mother Nature decided to give us the extra challenge of rain.  It rained from beginning to end creating a now slick, surface to walk on.  he scariest part of the entire section was the stair leaving the "Flowers Tower".  This descent had an incline of 78 degrees and no hand railings.  In the end I would not have missed it for anything. 

This week we have been learning the specific acupoints of the horse and got to actually use this knowledge on our demonstration donkey.  The donkey did pretty well until the last couple of minutes when he had enough of us poking him.  

I will try to update a couple more times this week as I am able.

2556-Long Corridor

2758-Temple of Heaven

2813-Great Wall