Italy Day 6: Rome Italy Temple & The Palace of Caserta

Guten Tag. This is Big sis and I'm going to tell everyone about our adventure the the Caserta Palace and the Rome Temple.

I have to say, the temple grounds were the best tended to then any other temple I've been to. Even in the winter time, the plants were all blossoming and beautiful. Their were about 10 people cleaning the grounds and tending to the temple. Of course we didn't go int the temple itself, but we planned on going to the visitors center instead. We arrived there at around 8:45, but it didn't open until 9 and so we explored the grounds and saw the beautiful temple from the outside. It was absolutely gorgeous. 

We finally were able to go inside and we got to see all of the 12 apostle stature and the statue of christ. I am pretty sure the the Rome temple visitor center is the only one that holds all of the original 12 apostle statue. These however aren't originals, but replicas of the actually statue in other churches scattered around Italy. There were two missionaries and a nice elder who were there and they told us the background and some stories about all of this wonderful statues. 

Then the took us the the other side of the wall were there was a 10 foot long stained window that held 140 stories from the New Testament. Everything in the window at least represented 2 stories. For example, the woman reaching towards christ represented the woman touching Christ's garments, the woman at the well, and the story of the adulteress. The artist of this window even put hi face in the glass, he's the man walking toward christ, he also represents the one leper who came back and thanked Christ after healing them. There are so many stories and symbolic things. It was so amazing. Eventually, we had to leave, but before we did, there was a scaled model of the outside and inside of the temple. So, yes we didn't go inside, but we still got to see the inside of the temple. 

After saying goodbye and going back onto the rode, we stopped at one of the largest Palaces in the world. At the front of the palace, it didn't look very big at all, but the completely changed when we went inside.

We first wanted to see the English gardens in the backyard, and though it would be fun walk around. We thought that it would be a little walk, but we were completely wrong. The the backyard was at least 2.5 MILES LONG!!!!!!! And it just so happened that the gardens only entrance was at the very top of the 2.5 mile hike to the end of the palace.

So we put on our determination faces and started the walk. We made up games and enjoyed the water in the middle while walking up and so the time didn't pass by terribly long. The gardens didn't allow entrances past 1 and we were half way at 12:30 and we had already been walking for 45 minutes, and we started to hustle to the top.

We finally got there at 12:56 and got in to the gardens with some time to spare. The workers told us that they completely closed at 2:30 and so we had lots of time to explore the gardens. We saw so many weird plants and structures.

There were some fallen trees and some broken house roofs from the fallen trees, but other then that, it was so beautiful. We saw many lakes and a man made waterfall with really cool cave. The spiderwebs were humungous and disgusting.

We walked around and saw some really things and then deciding to call it good. We left at 2:25. We had the great blessing at making everything just in time. When we saw the all back, we didn't want to do it at all, and so my family took the shuttle back while the Doland's ran the entire way down. Since they had all kids between 11 and 7, they made it down surprising quick for 2.5 miles. While we waited for them, we started our tour of some of the palace rooms. We didn't know that we would be doing that for at least on hour.

The rooms were very big and looked very elegant. All the room had many chairs and paintings and some other artfiacts such as super old books and stuff. The largest amount of chairs me and M&M counted in one room were I think 38. Including a couch to hold 6 people. Crazy. There was even a room that had the ancient kings personal library and another room hand the royal babies bed. Sadly, there are no more royals to live in the palace and so it's just used for site seeing now. Kinda a waste in my opinion.

We explored the many rooms that we were allowed in and then went to the front of the palace again. If you ever want to go to this cite, it's worth it. Just be prepared for a very long walk that paid off in the end.

Beijing, China: Summer Palace

We went to the Summer Palace today.  It was a great thing that we all had our rain jackets, because it rained the entire time we were walking around these beautiful grounds.  We entered in at the East Palace Gate and as soon as we walked into the Summer Palace grounds, we were greeted by a bronze lion and beautiful cherry blossoms tree in bloom.  

The Summer Palace is like the Forbidden City, in the sense that once you walk in, you commit to seeing the entire things because it is a one-way road.  And like the Forbidden City, it was gigantic and required so much walking from the kids.  However, unlike the Forbidden City, everyone loved everything about the Summer Palace.  It was beautifully stunning and kept up so well throughout the entire thing.  Even with the rain, we were in good spirits and loved the Summer Palace in all its beauty.  I must warn you though, it is much cooler at the Summer Palace then in Beijing.  We were all so very cold, and the kids wished they had more then just a rain jacket to keep the warm, we just weren't expecting it to be so much colder.

We started by walking through a few courtyards and gardens.  The flowers were abundant and the colors of the buildings were rich and colorful.  We walked through the Renshou Hall, or the Benevolence and Longevity Hall and the Dehe Court, or the Virtuous Harmony Court.  When we got to the Leshou, or the Happiness in Longevity House courtyard, we just fell in love with the pillars and surrounding colors. How can someone not love this place, especially with the names of all these buildings and courtyards.

As we left the courtyard, we walked through a small doorway and turned a corner to see the top of the beautiful Buddha Temple on the Summer Palace property in the distance. The top of the temple just rose up straight out of the trees. It seemed so far away and we really started to get a feeling for how huge the property was.  Our tour guide, Brian, told us that usually the crowds at the Summer Palace are just as bad as the Forbidden City.  I guess the rain scared all the tourist away, and I am so glad it did, because we loved the Summer Palace and we were able to really see the beauty of it.  I know that if it was filled with people there is no way we could have felt and seen the charm of the palace.

We then took the long walk through the beautiful long corridors.  Each paintings on the beams were completely and totally different.  They were painted with precise detail.  There were so many beams, and I just couldn't believe the work that went into this long beautiful walk.  We found ourselves slowing down so we could really take in all the paintings and colors.  Even the floor had a beautiful pattern of flower laid in the tiles.

The long corridors walk along the Kunming Lake provided a beautiful and covered walk accompanied by a ton of trees.  We came at the perfect time, because all the trees were in bloom, and the blooms were a gorgeous rich two-toned pink color.  I couldn't stop staring at the blooms with how vibrant they were.

We walked by the huge Payiun Gate which looked out into the Lake. It was one of the prettiest gates I have seen.  Across from the Payium Gate was the entrance to the Temple of Buddhist Virtue.  Brian was rushing us along, as usual, but Bri and I really wanted to see the temple, so Kevin and Jason took the kids to get ice cream and Brian hurried us along to see the temple.

I'm so glad we had the chance to go into the temple, because it was probably one of the prettiest Buddhist temples I have seen.  The architecture and the vibrant colors were gorgeous.  The roof was the golden color of royalty.

We had to walk up so many stairs to get to the main temple.  As we were walking up the stairs we could see a cluster of buildings to our right and the Bronze Pavilion to our left.

One of my favorite parts of the temple was the corridors in the main area before the worshiping hall, they were just like the long corridors we had just walked through, except the paintings were in better condition.  There weren't many people at all that walked all the way up the stairs, so we pretty much had the temple to ourselves.  If Brian wasn't making us sprint through the entire thing, I probably could have spend more then an hour just at the temple.

We pretty much had to run down the stairs to keep up with Brian, and we caught up with the Kevin, Jason and the kids.  We were rushed so fast that some of the kids were still working on their smoothies and ice creams. We continued down the long corridor and made out way to the Qingyan Boat, or Marble Boat.  We were told this was were the royalty would have their tea parties.  The entire boat is made from marble.

We made our way to the Half-Wall Bridge and enjoyed the beautiful landscape and flowers before exiting out of the West Palace Gate.  Bri and I both agreed that we wish we had more time here, there was so much to see, and it would have been wonderful to slow down and just take in the beauty.  So much detail was put into the Summer Palace, from the paintings on every beam, to the flowers laid in the tile on the floor, to the flowers and beautiful trees in the landscape.  Everything was welcoming, calming, and charming.  I would definitely come back to the Summer Palace in heart beat.

Beijing, China - Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City

We took a trip to China with some amazing friends, the Walkers.  We had such a blast with them and our two younger girls are best friends with their older two girls, and Monster just loves their youngest daughter.  It was wonderful going wth such good friends.

Our first stop for our tour was at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.  We had an amazing tour guide, Brian, with Tour China Guide.  He told us about all the amazing things we were seeing and gave us a lot of history behind what we were seeing. Before you get into Tiananmen Square, you pass a tower.  I can't remember the name or significance, but it reminded us of the Gates in Korea.  

Once we got to Tiananmen Square we were able to feel how super large it really is. We got super lucky and came on a day where there was room to breath at the square.  Brian told us that on Holidays, it is so packed you can't move and are shoulder to shoulder.  The square in made up of the Monument to the People's Hero, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong.  You can see the Museum and the Mausoleum here. We had to pass through the Square to get to the Gate of the Forbidden City.  I'm going to let Big Sis tell you about the Forbidden City.

Hello there, this is big Sis. What a spectacular adventure that we have been on this week. In our trip to China, one of the most famous places in the capitol of Beijing is called The Forbidden City. In 1402 the Prince of Beijing, Zhu Di, took over the throne, declared himself emperor and decided to make a grand palace in Beijing. It took over a million workers and 15 years to complete his palace.  All of the Ming Emperors stayed in the palace for the next 200 years and expanded the palace and made it even grander. The Qing Dynasty took over the palace and used it for the next 200 years. The reason that it is called The Forbidden City is because, well it's already in its name, it's forbidden to enter. Normal citizen weren't allowed to enter except for generals and commanders and people like that, so that's how it got its name. It wasn't allowed to be toured until around 1987 when the government then allowed people to explore and look at the palace from the inside. 

To enter into the Forbidden City, you have to first pass through the South Gate, which is called the Meridian Gate, also known as the Gate of Heavenly Peace.  The Gate is seen from Tinnamanen Square.  There is a large guarded area in front of the Gate, so to enter you have to go down a tunnel and around the side.  The Chinese Government controls this area very heavily. Right above the passageway into the Forbidden City on the Meridian Gate is a picture of Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong was the leader of the communist army that won in 1946 and founded the People's Republic of China, he was the first ruler to unify China after the fall of the Qing Dynasty.

The palace gets around 800,000 tourist per day the numbers continue to increase every day. To get into the palace, we had to push through a very small bridge that was unbelievably crowded. There were police everywhere. Us kids thought this was fun and so we all hooked together and made a human chain kinda thing. I could tell that the parents were so stressed because I heard the mom's constantly counting "1 child, 2 child, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7... Ok!" It was really annoying because we were literally shoved into the people in front of us from the people behind us. It was worse than Korea! We continued to push our way though the Meridian Gate.

Finally after 5 minutes of the constant pushing and shoving, we made it through the Meridian Gate and then walked into gate two, known as the Gate of Supreme Harmony. It was just as bad as the Meridian Gate, super crowded and chaotic, and so we stayed linked together. There wasn't much to see.  It was just a million people and huge open areas between the gates.

It was a long walk to get to the next gate looking area.  This wasn't a gate though, it was the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Luckily, traffic eased up after a couple minutes. The walk felt like 1/2 a mile from the Supreme Harmony Gate to the Hall. I think that it was a great idea to bring along friends because if there wasn't, Little A's would have faded away by the time that we got to the Supreme Harmony Hall, but when we got to the entrance they were to same way when we started. The Harmony Gate was really similar to the Meridian Gate, but I think that it was slightly bigger.

The design on the celling and the walls is so beautiful and so unique. It is very similar, yet different from the paint art in Korea. Korea uses more greens and in China they use more blues and reds.  Fun fact, when you look at the color of roofs in china, you might see that they are different colors, the colors actually show what class they are in. The color for royalty is gold and so by the time we got to Supreme Harmony Hall, it was very visible that the roofs were gold. The buildings were gorgeous and so different as we got from one gate to the other.

Finally after getting to the Supreme Harmony Hall, we made our way to the center of the palace, the kings throne room. The area was so big and open even when half of it was under construction, but there were some sections that you could see the ground was original because it was so uneven and slightly painful to walk on. In the very center was a particular building that was the middle point of this tour, The Grand Throne Room.

The bridge that we had to take had ancient and totally original rain gutters that were in the shapes of dragon heads. They were the sewers for the palace back then. The rain would fill and go down the drain and come out of the statues mouth. The chemical's in the rain has slowly eroded away the dragons but they are still used to this day.

Another fun fact, there are always two golden gilded lions that guard either temples or palaces. The boy dragon's paw in on a golden ball, and the girl has a little baby dragon under its paw. There were these two gilded lions protecting the Inner Palace. We didn't want to push through the million tourists to just see the throne and the King's bedchamber, so we moved on.

We saw a souvenir shop with ice cream, so we stopped for some. We ate our ice cream outside and we attracted our own little crowd of Chinese paparazzi. There was one little boy that wanted to eat his ice cream with us so he just came up and sat in the middle of us. It was really funny.

After we finished our treat, we went through the gate that lead to the highlight of the tour, the Queen's Garden or known as the Imperial Garden.

We sadly were just a few week too early to see the garden when it was blooming, but we had a few trees that were super pretty. The first thing we saw was the strangest rock formation that was so cool. We learned that the rock was a man-made rock, the workers made it using sticky rice, egg whites, and lime powder. You might think that this isn't possible, but this is completely true. There is such a thing. These rocks overtime have been eroded away to make these really strange shapes. 

What was also really unique was that the tree trunks that we saw had the strangest shapes too. There was one that had huge bumps all over, and this one, that I'm by that is entirely, evenly, spiraled around the entire tree trunk. It was so strange. The other trees that we saw had the strangest branches. It was so weird to see how these trees grew. They were beautiful, but more weird then you might think. The Queen's house's entry door has an arch of rocks that make it look like it is hand crafted, but it completely naturally made. We all loved this part because it was so interesting. beautiful, shaded, and different from the kings rooms. I loved this too. 

The Forbidden City was a one-way attraction.  Once you start walking, there is no choice but to continue forward.  We were lucky it wasn't a super hot day, but it was so much walking.  My feet hurt from all the walking.  My favorite was the Imperial Garden, but it was all really neat.  I am glad we came and saw the Forbidden City.