Today was our last day in Beijing. We took a morning tour of the Temple of Heaven and the park that surrounds it. The Temple is a place where the Emperor would give thanks to the god in heaven for the harvest and prayer of a successful harvest the following year. The architecture was quite beautiful. The part of the trip I enjoyed the most is the park surrounding the Temple. The park was a place where the Chinese who are retired go to exercise their body. There were many different activities including dancing, martial arts, stretching, parallel bars, and a game like our hacky-sack. What initially looked like playground equipment was actually for different types of exercises to work the different muscles of the body. I admire these people for their pride in physical fitness. Interestingly, smoking is still a large part of their society. But as of May 1 this year, the government is banning smoking inside buildings. After the park, it was off to the airport to fly to Shenyang in the afternoon. I was greeted at the airport by a delegation of the Yuhong School District. They gave me a large and beautiful bouquet of flowers at my arrival. Unfortunately for the delegation, they were given incorrect flight information so they had to wait nearly 3 hours at the airport. They took me at an excellent restaurant for dinner. Only my translator spoke English, but we broke the ice quickly when I could say a few things in Chinese and I found that all of them have studied English at some point. After the excellent food, I was checked into the Liyang International Hotel where I will stay for this week. My first real language barrier happened when the internet in my room did not work. A clerk at the desk knew enough English to help, but the fuyuan (service worker) did not. We some how managed the situation using gestures and what little Mandarin I know. I ended up moving to another room because there was a problem with the connection in the other room. Sunday, I get a tour of Shenyang.
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