Blog by Rich

They're marching from Tianamin Square to the Forbidden City, singing as they go.

Many of the buildings are being renovated for the Olympics. It is, obviously, no longer forbidden. It's now known as Old Palace. It was opened in 1925, so there's a good chance Eric Liddell was able to visit.

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It was great to spend the day with the four of you: Climbing the Great Wall and seeing all those factories.

All the best as you return to Seattle and Tokyo.

Rich and Joyce

When the emperors of the Ming Dynasty were buried there were 10 to 40 human sacrifices. They would commit suicide by hanging so that they could be buried with their emperor.

One of the speakers in Colorado Springs last week talked about being living sacrifices. I'm grateful to be more alive through ...

They say you can't be a hero until you've climbed the Great Wall. There's a very good reason: It's quite steep.

This was the emperor responsible for moving the capital to Beijing and starting the Ming Tombs (where we are right now) and the Great Wall.

The money is thrown at his feet for good luck: A practice undoubtedly rooted in ancestor worship.

We dropped by a silk factory and learned that silk worms grow to full size in about 60 days: That's five silk worm years. Then they spin a cacoon of silk. Five percent of them pair together to make a cacoon of two threads that surrounds both of them. Each thread is about a mile long: Quite productiv...

Friends,
It was great to meet you on the Great Wall. Thank you so much for the oranges, the apple and the kiwi juice. All the best with your studies in Beijing.

I went to a jade factory in Hong Kong in '86. The way I remember they ran their machines with a foot pump.

In the foreground: the aquatic center. Behind that is the Bird's Nest stadium, which will be used for track and field and the opening ceremonies.

...for cycle racing.

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Now we're standing on Chinese tile.

Now the sun's coming up over Russia. Besides the lack of technology, this missing shortcut is why I couldn't fly straight to China on my last visit in 1986. I ran a cross-country race in Guangzhou, China. To get there we flew south from Medford, OR, to L.A. to Anchorage to Seoul to Hong Kong. From t...