We went to the Ming Tombs where 13 out of 16 Emperors of the Ming Dynasty were buried here. The Ming Tombs, located in Changping District, about 50 kilometers from the northwest of Beijing, are surrounded by mountains on three sides. The whole area covers about 40 square kilometres. These tombs are the best preserved Chinese imperial tombs and have been nominated by UNESCO as world cultural heritage. The tombs area is so vast that tourists normally only see two of the 13 tombs, namely, Chang Ling – the largest in architectural scale, and Ding Ling – the only one that has been excavated so far.
We visited only the Changling Tomb which is the final resting place of the third Ming Emperor, Zhu Di. He named his ruling era Yongle (eternal joy) and was hence known as Emperor Yongle. He ruled China from 1402 to 1422. The construction of the tomb started in the seventh year of his reign and took five years to be completed. The layout of Chang Ling follows the pattern of Xiao Ling in Nanjing, tomb of the first Ming Emperor. We also viewed the exhibition hall where the historical relics unearthed from Chang Ling is displayed.
After visiting the Ming Tombs, we went to the Beijing Tianlongyuan Spa and Resort to watch a grand fantasy show "The Bodhisattva on the Holy Water". The show was quite interesting and i like the ice skating performance part but the rest of the show was too long and draggy and I lost interest after awhile and could not wait for the show to end.
Western Food Dinner:
We had an interesting western and chinese combined dinner and i like the decor of the restaurant.
Nian Gao with sausage (this is my favourite dish as i initially thought the nian gao was cookies as it does not look like the fried nian gao that my mum always cooks during Chinese New Year)Foot Massage:
Our tour guide arranged for everyone to go for a 45 minutes foot massage which was included in our tour package at the end of the day and hubby and i made the right choice of not going for the massage. Some of our tour members shared with us after the session that they were being persuaded throughout the session by the staff to buy herbal medicines to boost their health. This is the part of our tour which i hated the most as we felt pressurized to purchase things that we have no use for when our tour guide bought us to places which sells real expensive stuffs like pearl, silk, Pinxiu, tea etc... i really feel that its a waste of time. Luckily some of us stick together and we refused to buy and managed to slip outside and wait for the others who were interested in buying.
Supper:
I could not resist buying the cup noodle from the convenience store and tried it out for supper. The noodles tasted yummy and the soup was also tasty :>
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