July 28

Yesterday we started with a children's puppet show. Not shadow puppets - more like Japanese bunraku with almost life-sized puppets and the puppeteers in full view. Charlotte hated the insipid voices, but the guide and I loved it. Definitely some techniques my students can use.
We buzzed off to the silk factory where we again spent too much money, but so much of what we are seeing can't be found anywhere but here. We actually watched women stretching out the cocoons of the silk worms onto a quilt or rolling single threads onto bobbins. Incredible!
The Forbidden City was so much bigger than I thought it would be. Part is under restoration, but we saw gobs of it, and the movie "The Last Emperor" kept coming to mind as I saw room after room that I recognized.

The gardens at the Forbidden City have raised pebble areas to massage the feet of the concubines. Felt good!

Had lunch at a noodle house, and I asked to buy some of the sauce for Ken, but it needed refrigeration; so we passed. On to the vast Tainnamen Square where Chinese people kept asking our guide if they could have their pictures taken with us. First an old couple, then a group of young men (Charlotte was certainly the attraction here) and then a little girl who was mastering her first English lessons. So sweet. The hawkers are ravenous here, and you have to keep moving constantly.