Another exhausting day in Beijing! We started off the day by visiting our old buddy Chairman Mao- or, his remains at least. I will say he is very well-preserved. Almost too well-preserved - he looks like he's made of wax. The real adventure was getting to Tian'anmen Square. We took two taxis- Katie, Keesler and I in one cab, Cecilia and Dee in the other. Wrongfully, we assumed that we would be dropped off at the same location. Instead, we had a near panic-inducing 10 minutes where we wandered around the square hoping to find Cecilia and Dee. Luckily, we eventually did.
Some people at the hostel told us there was like a two hour wait to see Mao, but we breezed in there in about 10 minutes. I will give the communists this- they're very efficient. Unfortunately, they may be too efficient since they tried to rush everyone through Mao's chamber. However, there was a lovely gift shop at the end. I'd say Mao must be rolling over in his grave because of all this capitalism going on (particularly selling him), but he looked all good when we saw him.
Me with my old buddy Mao
MAfter seeing Mao, we went to pick up our bags (no bags allowed in the memorial hall) and found a restaurant to eat at. Luckily, they had an English menu, so we just pointed to what we wanted. I used Dee's book to order rice- that thing is so useful! We had about 5 people waiting on us- we can't tell if they were bored or scared to help us alone. At least now we've figured out how much food is enough for all of us- no hordes of food anymore! We learned our lesson from the duck...
After lunch we walked around the square for a bit on our way to the Forbidden City. While we were there, whe met a really nice Chinese guy named Dawson, like Dawson's Creek (as he so eloquently stated). He's a student and artist who was having an art display by the Forbidden City. As he stuck with us, he kept reassuring us that he wasn't a tour guide and wasn't going to charge us anything. He just wanted us to go look at the art. He did tell us some interesting things, like that China (the People's Republic) is turning 60 this year, so there's a huge celebration planned. Also, Tian'anmen Square can hold 1 million people! Crazy!
Dee and I ended up going to see the art, and we both fell in love. We each ended up buying two scrolls- one for ourselves, one for our families. As a thank you, Dawson painted us mini scrolls, explaining the characters that he had painted.
Finally, we got to the Forbidden City. The name [city] is certainly not a misnomer- the place is huge! I was starting to think we'd hever get through the whole thing. The architecture and designs on most of the buildings was the same as the temple we visited yesterday, but it was still beyond beautiful.
The interiors were all incredible. Most of them were blocked off from entering so people have to stand at the barrier to take pictures. Chinese people are very impatient and passive-aggressive, at least when it comes to shoving people out of the way to take pictures. Eventually, I started being passive-aggressive right back. Take that!
Another observation is how much people will come up to you and offer to be tour guides, etc. It happened so often today that I just wanted to wear a sign that said "Yes, I'm white. No, I don't need your services." It was beyond ridiculous. Equally ridiculous is the picture-takers. By the end of the day we were at 11- 11 pictures Chinese people took with us.
Chinese tourists getting their picture taken with Keesler
CWe finally made it to the Imperial Garden, which was my absolute favorite part of the Forbidden City. The trees were so incredible, and so old too. A lot of trees had their branches held up by metal posts. One of the signs said the garden was where the women of the court would stay to "amuse themselves." I honestly have to say that I wouldn't mind being a concubine if it meant I could hang out there all day!
We left the garden (reluctantly for me) and went to the market we found our first day to do a little more shopping. On the way, we ran into this woman who followed Keesler for quite some time, trying to sell a bunch of figurines. The woman started off at 100 yuan for one set- she ended up selling Keesler 3 sets for 40 yuan. Keesler's a bargaining champ. She helped us get some great deals in the market.
For dinner we decided to go to the night market, which is just stalls of food all lined up along one street. I ended up getting dumplings, which weren't very good. I asked for chicken and half of them ended up being vegetable- gross. There was some other pretty disgusting food for sale, all on sticks- snakes, seahorses, starfishes, beetles, centipedes, and other tentacled and/or legged organisms. One vendor thought it was hilarious to pretend to throw food at us because he could tell how grossed out we were. I was not amused.
Gross food at the night market
GEither fully satisfied or fully disgusted (the latter was probably just me), we went back to the hostel to call it a night. We also booked our tour for the Great Wall tomorrow- it's gonna be awesome. Also, I finally got to start writing post cards with the ones I bought at Tian'anmen Square. As soon as I find stamps and/or a post office, these are going out.
Oh, and I also got to use the squat toilets for the first time. They're a little weird, but overall not too bad!
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