and Desiree Sturrock, Age 12, assistant tour blogger and editor with the amazing bumper jokes and emoji's 😂
Greetings from Day 3 of the PSYO China tour!We haven't had to put on any surgical masks for pollution yet! Lucky us... 😷🚫. We are slowly recovering from the ill-effects of jet lag. This morning, after a buffet breakfast (🍚🍥🍲🍜) at our hotel, we toured the grounds of the Temple of Heaven. I know you can all easily look up facts and history of the Temple of Heaven on Wikipedia, but we can't because it's restricted in China 😒. Also, we all know how reliable Wikipedia is, but in the interest of remaining as fact-based as possible, allow me to quote the actual signage from the interpretive center...
"The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is the largest round ancient building that exists in China, which adopts Chinese traditional wood construction technique. The luxuriant hall is really majestic in height and of great magnificence. The numerical logic contained in the Hall happen to be identical with the time concept of Chinese lunar calendar, which reflects the astronomical thoughts and construction perception of ancient Chinese people, and suggests the Hall is a perfect combination of etiquette and the art of space-time in the buildings. It is a traditional holy hall where the emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties held the ceremonies of worshiping heaven and praying for bumper harvests during every first lunar month. The Hall stands for Chinese ancients' beautiful bumper grain harvests and their pursuit of happiness in life. It is a landmark building symbolizing Chinese splendid history and culture."
Mom, you can thank me (assistant blogger, Desiree) for typing all of that... 😒. It was a bumper amount of typing.
True to these words, the complex is amazingly beautiful. It is full of intricate architectural details and Chinese symbolism. The colors are vivid and represent heaven (blue🔵), the people (green✅) and earth (yellow🔶). The architecture of the temple is also symbolic, built with pillars representing the four seasons, 12 months of the year and 24 hours in a day. The details are everywhere you look, and it's truly astounding to think that this structure has survived since 1420.
As we exited the grounds, we walked through an area where the custom of match-making is alive and well. Think of Match.com - off the grid. People display written descriptions of their sons or daughters and if you're interested, you can inquire for further information. At this point in reading this blog, you should now be humming "matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match..." in your head. 👫 😍
After leaving the grounds, we traveled by bus 🚌 to an "early" lunch, which actually ended up being an on-time lunch because of Beijing traffic 🚗🚙🚌🚲. It's Monday in Beijing and I am convinced that the plural, "rush hours," is a more appropriate way to characterize the traffic situation. It was 11:30 am when I wrote this and we crept along at a rate of about 5mph with frequent stops to adjust for merging, pedestrians🏃, scooters, municipal busses🚌, taxis🚕 and cyclists🚲. Much to our horror, people seem to consider obeying the rules of the road as optional. Pedestrians cross traffic when they're not supposed to and the cars\bikes have many near misses with them and each other. Still, navigating the streets of Beijing from the safety and comfort of an air-conditioned tour bus feels like the optimal way to travel and is much appreciated. I may actually stop complaining about the 405 now...maybe...
After another delicious lunch banquet (the food is excellent), PSYO did a quick pit stop at the hotel and headed over to the Forbidden City Concert Hall for rehearsal, dinner and their first performance of the tour! The hotel lobby was buzzing with excitement and anticipation as we gathered and prepared to board our buses. As I watched the performers and their instruments load, I was especially impressed with cello logistics. It's not easy to manage a cello on tour (I know this from personal experience!), but the PSYO staff, local tour guides and chaperones made it look easy. Our borrowed cello cases look like military containers. In fact, if we were attacked, we could probably just crawl into them for safety. Fortunately, our only potential enemies on this trip were the airline baggage handlers! Even more fortunately, those who came into contact with PSYO cellos managed to treat all instruments with TLC. Clearly, our prayers to the cello transportation gods were answered!
And did they ever perform...wow is an understatement!!! Our kids and their conductor knocked it out of the park! You could feel the intensity of their effort and the connection they made with the audience throughout the hall. Bow hairs were flying - and at one point (first encore) I was almost sure Darth Vader was going to make an entrance (young children around us were so excited). PSYO's musicality was truly brilliant and the audience clearly appreciated the musical selections and their talent. Two standing ovations and two encores. Oh, and I'm not going to name any sections or names, but I think I saw some sunglasses appear on the faces of some musicians for the encores - what a crack up! The crowd was firmly planted in their seats until the very end. Clearly, the many hours of lessons, practice, rehearsals and previous performances paid off in the biggest way. I think I can speak on behalf of all parents and staff present when I say that I'm truly in awe of what our kids do as a group. We can all be so proud of them...as musicians in their own right, as members of PSYO, as representatives of our country, and ambassadors of music..the language we all understand.
Thanks so much for reading and we look forward to providing you with tomorrow's installment of PSYO China Tour 2016!
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