Day Sixteen - Jun 11, 2013
Beijing, China
Daily Didactic
We got up a little early for us and a little late for tourists. We headed to the kitchen, off of the second courtyard in Cindy and Nick's little compound. We chatted with our host Cindy for a bit and then headed out for Beijing tourism day one. With our annotated map in hand, we hopped the metro south to the Tianmenn square stop. True to form, we got off the metro and headed in the wrong direction for a bit. Eventually we pulled out our guide book and turned around. We took a brief detour south down the artificially authentic Qianmen Street, done up to look like a Chinese market street of some sort. In reality it was "that" street that you find everywhere, with Sephora, H&M, etc., but in a Chinese theme. It was entertaining and fun to look at but, not needing or wanting anything in particular, we eventually turned around and passed under the Zhengyangmen Gate Tower to Tiananmen Square. The square is an enormous area, with Mao's very large tomb on the south end. It boasts two of the largest video screens we've ever seen, running patriotic videos of Chinese industry and beauty. We walked around a bit before heading north into the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is the historical political center of old Beijing, full of gorgeous and impressive buildings and today a lot of Chinese tourists. This is the second day of the Dragon Boat Festival, which means Beijing is full of folks from out of town. In spite of that, we were still such a caucasian novelty that we had a number of people ask to take pictures with us. Cindy says this means they were from more rural parts of the country. After jostling for views and waiting out a significant rainstorm under a pagoda in the Imperial Garden, we worked our way home. As we contemplated dinner, Cindy asked if we were interested in trying worms. Theresa said no, Brian persuaded her otherwise. Photos below.
Today's Photos
