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Home of Our FamilyWith the 5th anniversary coming nearer, our heart is also beating faster and faster with it. It’s not only a day each member with the Novots feels excited with, but also a moment captures the heart of each member in Xiamen. Because of this big party for our Novots Family, those employees who have never come to Beijing realized their dreams- visiting the Capital Beijing. On behalf of everybody, I expressed my gratitude to Novots for this opportunity.
The Xiamen group left for Beijing on Jul. 2th. It was really a lovely day, cloudless and breezy. Every one of us was very happy with smile on our face along the way. Considering our plane would take off at 8:30 pm, we had ordered takeout in Eastern Dawn in advance to fill our stomach. Everybody sat around the delicious unique steamed rich with roasted chicken leg and boiled soup with Fuzhou fish balls to have a happy dinner and conversation. After finishing the dinner, we had a short break and then took the BRT chaining car specially seen in Xiamen to the terminal building of Xiamen Airport.
We smiled and talked with each other all the way and everything was normal as planned. We went aboard on time and the plane took off on schedule, all of which seemed to tell us that our trip to Beijing this time would be happy and safe. When the plane arrived in Beijing, the tour guide in Beijing had already waited for us at the entry of Beijing Airport and was lifting a flag as guidance for us. The tourist bus was also in the parking lot of the airport welcoming our arrival. On our way to the Jinhui Hotel, some people were sleeping while some were so excited that they enjoyed the night view of Beijing without any sense of sleepiness. In the hotel, the guide described our schedule on Jul. 3 again and helped accommodate us.
In the morning of July, 3th in Beijing, the weather was as pleasant as that in Xiamen, the sun shining and birds singing in the sky. Everybody finished washing at 7:00 and then had breakfast. It was really worth mentioning of the buffet breakfast supplied by the Jinhui Hotel. Porridge, vegetable, steamed stuffed buns, soya-bean milk, eggs, etc. all were available for us. We enjoyed ourselves and marveled: breakfast in Beijing could be so nice! At 8:00, under guidance of the guide, the tourist bus left for the Tiananmen Square, the biggest square in the center of a city in the world and the Imperial Palace, the largest and most well-preserved ancient architectural complex. Before the departure, the guided had reminded us that Beijing after 7:30 am would enter its rush hours. So we were worried that traffic jam would affect our schedule in the morning. But we were so lucky! There were no jams at all along the way even it was after 8:00. So we arrived in the Tiananmen Square just in half an hour.
After getting off the conditioning tourist bus, we found the sun wasn’t gentle anymore and our skin was just dried by the hot sun. Just on that occasion did we realize it was very hot and suffocating in Beijing in July. The hot weather made us always desire for water. Well, the guide was right. It was like a big steam box which made everybody sweat like a pig! In spite of this, the Tiananmen Square still had crowed of people there. Maybe it was just where its charm lay in. Although many years had passed, the Tiananmen Square still seemed young, energetic and majestic. The Five-starred Red Flag on the Square were flying, the Monument to the People’s Heroes was standing like a giant on the center of the Square and the National Museum of China and the Great Hall of the People stood far apart which faced east and west of the former. On the gate tower, you could see yellow tiles shining gloriously under the sunny day on the gate tower, scarlet pillars and tower platform, white Ornamental Column, stone handrails, stone lions and golden water bridge. Clean waters, blue sky, red walls, green trees, stone rails, yellow tiles, painted beams, scarlet columns, all them were colorful, beautifully shaped, magnificent and dignified and all of them were arranged in a solemn way geographically, demonstrating a tremendous momentum and arousing all of our pride for them.
   After a short stay in the Tiananmen Square and taking some pictures, we went to our next destination- the Imperial Palace. After arriving in there, we found people had already queued in the northern entrance of the Palace and in the Palace flow of people holding umbrellas or wearing sun bonnets were here and there. However, no matter how crowed it was in the Palace, it wouldn’t affect our interest in the picturesque scenery in the Imperial Palace. In order to ensure a successful activity in the afternoon, the guide limited our visit time into one hour and a half. For that reason, the whole visit mainly followed the south-north route in the axis of the Palace from the three main halls, i.e. Taihe Hall, Zhonghe Hall and Baohe Hall in the south to the three palaces, i.e.the Palace of Heavenly Purity, the Hall of Union and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility in the north.
Especially for the Taihe Hall, the Palace of Heavenly Purity and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility, we had seen them only on TV before. This time, they were just standing in front of us tangibly, which brought so many gains for us. The Taihe Hall was commonly referred to as the “Throne Room”, in which there were wooden pillars stacked with powders and painted with golden painting and exquisite caissons with curled-up dragon in them. In the center of the Hall, there was a golden painted throne with carved dragons, a symbol of feudal imperial authority standing on a platform of two-meter high. In front of the throne, there were beautiful crowned cranes, furnaces and vessels and in the back were a screen with carved dragons. The whole Hall was decorated in a magnificent and solemn way. In terms of the Palace of Earthly Tranquility, it was used as a resting place for Queens in the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty before the Emperor Yongzheng holding the power. Snappers Halls were set in both sides of the Palace, in which the East Snapper was used by Emperors as their nuptial’s chamber and Emperor Kangxi, Emperor Tongzhi and Emperor Guangxu all get married in this Chamber. The three Halls were characterized by solemnity, gravity, magnificence and majesty to express supremacy of emperors. What’s different, the three Palaces were much richer in a flavor of life. Constructions in them were much more natural courtyards, i.e. gardens, studies, museums and pavilions, hills and stones, etc. We just stayed in the Imperial Palace for 2 hours, but we were still deeply impressed that the Imperial Palace was a crystal obtained by laboring peoples’ intelligence and physical labor hundreds’ of years ago. Construction of such a magnificent and towering architectural complex under the conditions at that time indeed reflected high intelligence and creation ability of ancient Chinese working people.
   After finishing the tour in the Imperial Palace, we drove to the “Beijing Hotel”. Of course, it wasn’t the five-star Beijing Hotel receiving nations’ important figures but a small restaurant just receiving tourism groups. Aha, how fast the serving is! Rice put in a big iron pot was served firstly then egg soup with sea vegetable and ribs soup in another big iron pot were put on the table. We had never seen that serving mode before. Next, the server sent the dishes named stewed carp, sweet corns, braised steak fillet, etc. together on a cart. At the first sight, the dishes were so delicious and nice that we thought we could eat them up. But later we found we were wrong because all dishes were cooked with much sugar in them. They were too sweet! But we were so hungry, so we had no choice but eat them. However, in this sense, our trip was worthy because we had enjoyed a real Beijing dish. Even so, we missed seafood in Xiamen so much at that time. In the summer, sit by the food stall to drink bottles of icy drinks and taste delicious shrimps, crabs and squills with sea breeze blowing. Oh! How comfortable it could be!
   It was rainy in the morning of July. 4. What a cooperative day it is for climbing the Great Wall! A hot day would definitely peel us! Because it has a tight schedule on that day, we got up at 6:00 and set out at 6:30 on time. Arranged by the guide, the hotel had packaged our breakfast in advance which we could have on the bus and at the same time enjoy the view along the road. Still, we didn’t meet any traffic jams and it took just 40 minutes to arrive at the foot of the Badaling Great Wall. As soon as we passed the entrance, the sky started to scatter light rain which wetted our skin dried for a long time. The coolness brought us different feelings at that moment. In case of catching a cold, we all bought raincoats in the stores of the scenic spot. But hardly had we enjoy wearing raincoats for a dozen of minutes when the rain stopped later. After entering the gate of the Great Wall, we felt so excited because we could touch the sceneries which were already familiar to us with our own hand! Look at the Badaling Great Wall carefully, we found it was made up of huge granite stone slabs and large bricks. The magnificent wall was tall and stable which was constructed following the mountain ridge, rising and falling with features of mountains. It was just like a huge dragon flying among mountains and ridges. The peak of the Badaling Great Wall was 1000 meters higher than the sea. Because we only had two hours to tour the Great Wall, we stopped from time to time along the way and finally only reached the side of the peak which was 888 meters higher than the sea. Even though we didn’t reach the peak, we had already had a panoramic view of the beautiful scenery in distance. Looking into distance, you could see the mountains standing in a continuous string soaring into the sky. The Great Wall rushed near from the wind far away and winded up to the sky with its head and the tail invisible.
   The weather turned clear when we ended the visit in the Great Wall at about 11:00. Then we drove to the Ming Tombs as soon as we had the lunch. The area of Ming Tombs was surrounded by mountains. In the center, there were plains and before the Tombs there was a litter river winding and zigzagging. In a word, it was a pleasant place with green hills and clear waters rounded. The guide mainly focused on introducing the Ding Mausoleum, the only tomb among the Ming Tombs which was unearthed and available for visitors. The overall layout of the Ding Mausoleum in the Ming Dynasty was presented as a shape of square in front and round in behind, expressing the symbolic meaning of a square earth with round sky in the philosophy of ancient China. In the underground palace of the Ding Mausoleum, there was a coffin bed, in the middle of which was the coffin of Emperor Shenzongxian named Zhu Yijun (titled Wanli) and on the left was Queen Xiaoduan and on the right was Queen Xiaojing. Besides, 23 big boxes filled with phoenix coronets, golden basins, golden bowls, jade belts and brocades were placed at both sides. After introducing the Mausoleum vividly and at the departure time, the guide asked us to flicked the dust away from our body and strode across the threshold as well as said “we get back” to ourselves at the same time to get rid of Yin air of the earth.
It was nearly 2:30 after visiting the Ming Tombs and the guide led us to the Summer Palace by bus in the following. The Summer Palace was such a picturesque place that we nearly got drank by enjoying it. The Palace was the largest and most complete royal garden existing of our country. It was a large-scale natural mountain and water garden constructed by adopting the Kunming Lake and the Longevity Hill as the basic sites and the scenery of the West Lake in Hangzhou as an example and designed with some patterns and conceptions used in designing of gardens on the Yangtze Delta. The artificial scenic spots such as pavilions, galleries, palaces, temples and bridges were in harmony and integrated with the natural mountains and vast lake. The artistic conceptions expressed by the whole Garden brought us a visual feast. In the Garden, you could hear birds singing everywhere and see foreign friends from across the world gather together to enjoy the scenery. The tasty Beijing Classic Ice Sucker, in particular, reminded us of our happy hours when we were children.
   Our visit in the Summer Palace just ended at 5:00 in the afternoon. It was still sunny then and we advanced to our next stop – the Olympic “Bird’s Nest”. Due to the tight schedule, we only looked around it from the outside and took pictures so as not to delay our flight time and guider’s pickup time in the airport. The Nest was mainly composed of huge gate type steel frames which was just like a cozy bird’s nest knitted with steel mesh like branches accommodating a hundred thousand people. It was a nest breeding and taking a good care of life which was placed with human’s hope for their future. In the sun, the Bird’s Nest was shining extraordinarily and our smiles were much brighter. Everyone of us valued the short stay in the Bird’s Nest and took pictures happily and frequently.
   It was 6:00 in the afternoon when the whole trip ended. After a visit of the whole day, we felt excited and tired indeed. So we rushed into the KFC to have a good meal of hamburgers and cokes. Just image how happy we were at that time! After having such an adequate meal, we got our boarding pass and passed security check. At last, we stayed in the boarding room and waited for the departure time.
Short stay in Beijing with a tight schedule brought us an abundant trip. It was really a worthwhile trip! If we would have opportunities for a second trip to Beijing, we would be sure to go to the alleys, taste the snakes and do crazy shopping!
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