This trip Chris and I were a bit leary to take on China with out a guide so we decided to go on a package tour.  We went to Beijing and Xi'an.  Our tour company was called Xanadu travel adn yes they use Olivia's Newton John's song as there hold music. Which unfortunately became the pop song stuck in my head every time I looked at our luggage tags. Baring that they were a good company to go through and we had a great time. 

I am going to break this up in several articles over the next few days so check back.

We arrived on Tuesday and were ushered off to a great lunch. It is always a nice relief to have native foods in the home country. After lunch our first stop was the Temple of Heaven.  This was a circular shaped building with several outer buildings and a sacrificial platform at the other end of the complex.   It was very beautiful to visit. The Temple of Heaven was used by the emperor to make sacrifices on the winter solstice.  The architecture was refreshing to look at since it was not exactly the same as the the architecture we have seen in Korea. 

Ironically, we managed to get stopped by a group of Korean tourists who had their picture taken with me.  This had been my first occurrence of the adult being grabbed by the Korean usually it's the kids they like to have their pictures taken with.

After the temple of Heaven, we went to a Silk Market and demonstration factory where we learned the life of a silk worm and how silk is made.   There is approximately 1060 meters (3500 feet) of silk in one cocoon.    If two silkworms form a cocoon together they cannot be used in clothing they are used for batting.  The whole process was fascinating to watch and we took pictures along the way. They boil the cocoons in hot water to get off the binding material and literally unwind the silk from the cocoon.  It was pretty amazing to learn that one thread of silk is taken from between 6 and 10 silkworm cocoons. They twist 6-10 cocoons together at one time then dry it in a drying machine.  The larvae is then used in medicinal medicines. 

We went to a tea ceremony where we learned how to properly pour and drink tea.  Who knew that slurping tea would be useful in some teas to get a true flavor of the tea and also to tell the host that you like it at least in Asia. 

After our tea ceremony, we went to one of the three Chinese Acrobats shows.  This was very cool and I would highly recommend to anyone coming to China that they go.  Chris's comment when we walked out was that it is pretty amazing that anyone but China even manages to get a medal in the Olympics with performers like this.

After dinner we went to the hotel and crashed.  We had been up since three a.m. and were both exhausted.