The Forbidden City

Karin called this morning with an update on their Wednesday's adventures. It has rained two days before so Beijing's air seemed clean.  Their first stop was Tienanmen Square. Of course the massacre was not spoken off. 

From there they walked across the road to the Forbidden City. Which is called that because no commoners were allowed in.

The eunuchs and concubines were housed in the back of the city along with the Empress.  The emperor was never allowed to spend the night with his empress or any concubines as he was to have his mind on the state of the country. He was allowed to choose a concubine and either 1 or 2 hours to spend with her.  The  emperor was so afraid of someone coming in to assassinate him that if he wanted a concubine, the eunuchs would come to the lady, strip her naked, roll her in a rug and carry her to his palace, then unroll her, light the incense that would burn for the allotted time of either 1 or 2 hours then once the time was up, come back, roll her back up into the carpet and carry her back.  The eunuchs were very rich as the concubines would bribe them to choose her. Which ever wife OR concubine that would have the first son was then chosen as empress.

Another interesting fact was when the emperor knew he was going to die his favorite concubines were chosen to go with him to the afterlife. A eunuch would take her a white scarf and help her hang herself.  From their they visited the Summer Palace with it's massive garden.

This was a summer resort for royal family members. The Mongolians conquered the city and the summer palace was built to house the Mongolian emperor. He would spend 6 months a year in the city. They had a lot of walking and were pretty tired when they got back to the hotel. Karin and mom were running out of money by this time so Karin tried her special debit card, the one that would not charge them for taking money out any where in the world but the pin number was wrong. She tried another credit card but that wouldn't work. She walked down to the bank to try to get some money but didn't have her passport on her so they wouldn't give her any. She got back to the hotel and mom said, "too bad you can't call Diane, she could get you money and solved our problem"  When Diane heard this she thought, "wow I must be some kind of miracle worker, able to change money into yuan.!"  Karin was able to get on line and found out she could change the pin number on the card with no charges, did that and got YUAN, enough to order room service and enough for the next few days. Of course when Diane was talking to mom and Karin and hearing the story of no money for room service she ask "why didn't you just charge it to your room?"  Neither Karin or mom would have thought about that, we were always taught if you don't have the money don't buy it!
My day here on the farm started early.  Star is now showing big but can't be covered as an outside mare was coming in to for Valiant and Valiant is the stallion we want for Star.  Madiera was teased, she is now out. Zalena was teased and she was in and covered by Evan.  No sign of Lily, Sangria or Jenis showing.  Brook and Anna brought Duchess over around 11:00 am. According to their vet, she will be ready to ovulate on Thursday but when she was tied and Valiant brought over, she did not show at all and kicked out at him. Today they twitched her and he got the job done very quickly. She showed as he was mounting.  I thought all was well and I would be able to cover Star tomorrow except they called right back and told me their vet thinks we should cover her again tomorrow night. I sure hope Star will still be in on Friday but after checking her history I don't think she will.  After talking it over with Diane we decided starting next year we are charging $1200.00 for the stud fees for Valiant and Evan. Too many times we end up putting off breeding our own mares to satisfy a customer and it just isn't worth the time and effort at our current price.  Rebecca and her husband came this morning to visit Claire, Rosalie's filly.

Today went very well. Rebecca had Claire eating grain out of a bucket she was holding. Claire was haltered, then taken to the outdoor arena so she could see her movement. She didn't show off much but it was still terribly hot. She let them graze a bit then hosed both of them off. Claire even stood for fly spraying.  This filly is smart!
Mark had a late estimate so just took church clothes with him. After his last one he stopped at McDonalds got a snack and changed then went to church. Diane drove from here tonight taking Ruth and me.