We won’t be posting this until later, but it’s about the 20th. Too cheap to pay for Internet.
Today was probably the day of the tour I was looking forward to the most: Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.
We walked north, starting in Tiananmen Square. The square itself is pretty much just a big open area, but it’s a big one. Apparently, Tiananmen is the largest city square in the world. It’s mostly just full of tourists (mostly Chinese, some foreign) walking around and taking pictures of each other. It was actually a really happy place, despite the obvious associations we have.
I missed my chance to haggle with a vendor over an English copy of the Quotations of Chairman Mao beneath his picture. The irony may have overwhelmed me if I’d actually tried, though.
Then, we walked under the street to the south gate of the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is huge. It’s like… well… it’s like the size of a city.
It was in the Forbidden City where I hit the wall for beautiful ancient architecture. Through the gate of yet another wall: “look, more stunning ancient architecture. It looks a lot like the last stunning ancient architecture.”
I understand the whole Chairman Mao worship thing more now. The Forbidden City represents 3000+ years of Emperors hanging around, being Emperors. Mao gets the credit for changing the government structure of China for the first time in three millennia. Okay, that probably should get you a big picture in the town square.
After lunch, we took a rickshaw tour of the Hutong (Hutong ≈ old Beijing slum) that has been preserved (preserved ≈ sanitized enough for tourists to go there, but not enough that they notice). The rickshaw took us to an old woman’s house (Mrs. Wong) where she showed us the place and talked about living in a Hutong while our guide translated.
Mrs. Wong had pictures of Henry Kissenger and two European leaders that I didn’t recognise at her place. She’s obviously the go-to authentic old Hutong woman. Still, it was nice to see one of these communities, much like it would have been.
We went to a couple of markets. Both seemed to be old outdoor markets that the government had decided were taking up too much room, and stacked into six story buildings. They were cool, if a little manic. Cheeky souvenirs for all! [KS: I think the old markets were deemed “too dirty looking” for the Olympics and were therefore moved into buildings. The new “Silk Market” is much cleaner than the outdoor one that I remember from 2001, but just as crazy.]
After dinner, Kat and I walked a few blocks around our hotel. Apparently, we’re in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant area. Then again, that might describe every other block in Beijing. [KS: Yeah, I think we saw the typical Beijing block. Lots of food stalls. Didn’t eat anything though! :)]
So all-in-all, a good day.
Tomorrow (probably “today” by the time we get Internet to post this), we’re off to Shanghai.