This morning we visited the Hospital of Femur Head Necrosis in Beijing. This hospital was built in 1997 and has around 200 beds, half of the beds are currently occupied. They have treated 18,000 cases so far from 45 countries and all of China. They specialize in late-stage femur head necrosis. We started our tour with visiting their diagnostic rooms. They showed us real examples of diseased hip joints. They use many different types of treatment including acupuncture, massage, electric stimulation and herbal medicine. One of the treatment rooms we visited provided food baths to help with stimulation. The average cost to stay at the hospital is 30-70 rmb per day ($4.50-$10.67). The Hospital of Femur Head Necrosis received the award by the Chinese government as one of the 10 Science and Technology Achievement in the field of TCM. They told us their mission in the treatment is to preserve intact hip bone, remove dead bones to regenerate new bones. 

After the hospital visit, we went to the Great Wall of China. We were very lucky and had overcast weather when we climbed the wall. The climb to the top took over an hour to reach the top of the wall where they allowed us to go due to the reconstruction of the wall. We walked over 115 flights of stairs to the top. The sights were unbelievable and truly worth the sweat! The steps on the wall are different heights which made the hike a little difficult. For lunch, we visited a Jade Factory and they briefly explained how they made it their jewelry. For the 2008 Olympics, the medals had a little Jade in them. We got to walk around the jewelry and had a wonderful lunch. 

After lunch, we travelled to the China Agricultural University Ministry of Agriculture Feed Industry Center. When we first got off the bus, we were assigned a Chinese student partner who was responsible for guiding us through the tour. All of the people we met were graduate and PhD students studying swine nutrition. We first toured the Feed Museum. They had 1209 feed ingredients on display and many interactive monitors including a game to test how well certain species do with different rations of feed. After the museum tour, we had dinner with the students. There were some interesting food choices including duck blood and beef stomach. We walked around campus after dinner and found some students playing basketball. We shot some hoops and weren’t doing well, so we left and found some ping pong tables. We had a lot of fun playing against the Chinese students. Every interaction with students has been amazing, we have learned so much from them and hope to maintain relationships after returning to the states.

 A gift

 

 Feed Museum

 

 Femur Head Hospital

 

 Go Big, Go Blue, Go Jacks!

 

 Great Wall heros

 

 Great Wall

 

Jade factory