Checking out

Our last night was short since we had to leave the hotel by 12:30pm, but we did walk down Wangfujing street again to get a meal and take it all in once again.

I hope to someday visit China again, whether it be Beijing again or another city, because it was such an amazing trip!!

I was amazed with myself, because I have such a hard time with food, but I tried new things and was much more adventurous than normal. The food (for the most part) was good and I had a wonderful hotpot meal as well as a good meal at a hidden local restaurant on a side street. We had to point to dishes since none of them spoke English but it turned out to be very good.

Throughout our trip, people kept referring to the meaning behind specific colors, especially in the clothing for emperors as well as silk. I decided to do a little research to find out more about it and here's what I came out with.

The five basic colours of the Chinese tradition are arranged according to their equivalents:

1. Red: fire, reaching upwards, corresponds to the south as dictated by the traditional Chinese cardinal points, and coincides with the warm season of summer.
2. Black: water, delving into the depths, is in the north. Its season, winter, is marked by the absence of water, which at this time gathers in the northern "shallows of the world".
3. Green: wood, is in the east and relates to spring. Green is also the colour of the world of plants.
4. White: metal, is in the west, with its season autumn with white as its colour: a white with a blue tint. Incidentally, contrary to Western colour-systems, black and white are part of the same circle in Chinese colour-systems.
5. Yellow: earth. In the code of the five elements, the earth has a carrying, supporting function, and thus also assumes the function of primary source and nutrition: the plants sprout from the earth, from where fire, too, breaks out; metals are extracted from its mines, and water flows from its wells. The earth is the centre — the colour yellow; its taste is sweet, and its aroma is that of perfume. Mankind as the yellow race, the inhabitants of this world, stems from this equivalent.

The colors yellow (or gold) and blue were the colors of royalty, worn by the emperor and empress. Also, a lot of the buildings are colored in red and yellow. Click here to see a Color Chart of all the different colors and their meanings with differences between Eastern traditions and Western traditions.