As I expected I didn’t end up having time to write about our much while I was in China.  It was my job to keep the posts coming for the Stellae Boreales blog and post new photos whenever possible.  Hopefully many of you dropped in to read the many perspectives posted there as musicians, parents and coaches wrote about our travels.

After our trip to the Great Wall we stopped off at a Cloisonne Factory and were able to see each step involved in creating the beautiful pieces made using this technique.  Each item is made from copper onto which is marked an elaborate design.  The craftsman then attaches wire to the item along the lines of the design making compartments into which coloured enamel will be dropped. The item is heated and the enamel process repeated until there is enough to fill each compartment.  Each item is fired, polished and then gilded along the original wire lines.  As you can see the process is time consuming and the prices reflect that.  We had a chance to try dropping colour into the compartments on copper saucers and quickly saw that a steady hand and an accurate eye was needed.

That evening those of us who could keep awake enjoyed the Peking Opera,  it was like nothing we had ever seen or heard!  The elaborate costumes and makeup combined with the carefully choreographed fight scenes made it interesting to watch.  The story lines, taken from ancient Chinese legends were a little hard to follow at times but when I think about it, the “separated lovers” tale and the “renegade warrior fighting off all attempts to quell him” are familiar story lines in any culture.

On the morning of our last full day in Beijing we were taken to a hutong, an old Chinese settlement, where we travelled by rickshaw and visited a Chinese family’s home.  L13 wrote about this here.  It was great to see the style of living once enjoyed by many Chinese extended families, which I had read about just before leaving Canada in Moying Li’s book Snow Falling in Spring.

One thing that struck me about Beijing was the neat and manicured look of the city.  There were people sweeping streets and picking up garbage everywhere we went.  All the freeways and main roads were lined with plants and each plant was covered in healthy green leaves.  From the bus we saw gardens everywhere usually featuring hedges clipped into the shape of Olympic or Chinese symbols.  Considering the amount of pollution in the air we were amazed at how healthy everything seemed.  Although the roads we drove down were always busy they were wide and the city appeared spacious despite its population of 17 million.  As we drove down the main streets we could see glimpses down alleys where the view was quite different, but we had no chance to wander there.

I am sitting in the bus on our last day in Beijing.  Our plan today is to walk up Coal Hill, see the pandas at the zoo and visit a Lama temple before we head to the airport to check in. As we are in a traffic jam is not looking likely that we will be able to do all of that.

Since I last wrote we have seen some amazing sights.  The Great Wall was spectacular and it was a thrill to see the group perform there.  We had a hot sunny day which meant that we could see for miles and our photos are beautiful.  Before we started climbing the group gave a concert at the entry.  They were able to set up and play in the shade of a pavillion.  Understandably our presence there drew in the tourists and we had an audience of young and old, Chinese and foreigners.  The response was positive throughout but the particular reacton to the Butterfly Concerto was lovely to see.  As soon as the musicians started it, there was applause and then more several times throughout the piece.

Then we climbed!  The steps are very steep and the sun was very warm so it wasn’t long before the group divided into smaller groups:  the serious, the deadly serious and not quite so serious.  Which ever group you were in it was still a thrill to be on the wall and see what a massive task it must have been to construct it.  I was a mildly serious climber going only as far as I could on the limited sleep I had had at that point.  All the surrounding hills were covered in different tress, some of them planted in formation creating a green tapestry on all sides.  The wall itself snaked off in two directions over hills and out of sight.