My Month Long Travels Part 10

  I returned back to Beijing to meet up with a friend visiting from the United States (home). I was also ready to see some well known Chinese landmarks.

 The first place we headed the day after airport pick up was the Tiananmen Square to view the lovely portrait of Mao ZeDong. It is well know in western history because of the tragic events that have occurred here, apparently it is not as well know in Chinese history. If you do not know who Mao is you can see a picture of him below. Also, he was the leader of China following World War II. You can find people who think he was a great leader and helped his country and you can find those who lay many atrocities at his feet.

  After viewing Mao we headed into the Forbidden City, which is not what the Chinese refer to it as, they call it the 'Palace Museum.' When I was telling English speaking Chinese individual that I was going to the 'forbidden city' they gave me strange looks followed by an 'oh' of understand when I explained further. It would be strange hearing what foreigners call your countries major attractions. The Forbidden City is located just behind the square. It was once the palace of the Chinese Emperor and contains many, many buildings. We wondered around for about four hours and did not see all there was to see. 

  The passageway below is the center gate/tunnel into the palace. There are two slightly smaller entrances on either side (see second picture). The center entrance was reserved exclusively for the emperor, the only other person who was able to pass through that door was the future empress on her wedding day. Unfortunately we were not able to pass, I did try but a guard stopped me. 

   This building was the main building in the palace complex. It was where the Emperor lived and conducted his business. Surrounded by a huge stone courtyard, it did not look very homey to me. Would not suggest living there. Surrounding this huge courtyard were then many, many buildings making the entire palace much larger. These buildings were actually a collection of different complexes or palaces that were connected together around the main Palace. In these buildings lived others of the royal family and court, from eunuchs to concubines from consorts to servants.

   The throne room or I believe it is.

   The decoration in all the buildings were really impressive. The details were intense. You can see that from the picture of the ceiling below.

   This is the royal wedding chamber. The character that you see draw on the wall is that character that you will see at all Chinese weddings today, especially on the wedding invitations.

   Once you left the main courtyard you wondered through passages like the one below from complex to complex within the Forbidden City. While you can wonder without a map to the point of confusion everything was built in a specific order and for a specific reason.

   From outside the Palace, you can see the moat that goes around it.

  The next day we meet up with a friend of mine who lives in Beijing and all headed out to a section of the Great Wall called Badaling. Since the wall is so long there are many different section you can see, the main tourist ones have been rebuilt but you can still go to sections of that wall that are essentially rubble. During different periods in Chinese history stones from the Great Wall have been scavenged for other building projects. 

  It was a very windy day which did not make the climb any easier. I say climb for a reason because at some places it was as if I was climbing up a wall. I sat down and scooted for some of the sections while I had to lean forward using my hand to get up other parts. It was, without a doubt, my workout for the day.

   You can see the steepness of the wall in greater detail in the the next two pictures.

   That evening we had dinner with my friend, his girlfriend and his father. They took us to a restaurant were we orders a dishes which they highly recommended: mashed potatoes with blueberries. It was really, really good.

  What you see in the following pictures is a stick of fruit covered in sugar. I had previously talked about this when I went to Harbin, but this one was actually good. As a note, the fruit that you see on the very top is a tomato which is eaten more as a the fruit it truly is instead of the vegetable that we make it in America.

  That evening we went out for Peking Duck, the specialty of Beijing. If you go to Beijing and do not try this you have failed as a tourist, or you just do not like duck. Chinese people will keep telling you to try it. It is actually very good and there are several different way to eat it: in a wrap, in a soup, dipped in sugar, and in a roll. I was able to meet up with my friend from the Netherlands that I meet in Datong. She found a place that had good reviews and although it was pricey it was delicious. She is traveling around Asia right now and takes some amazing pictures, better than mine, if you want to you can take a look at them, here is the link: http://moniquejoris.com/tagged/asia.  She puts them up as postcards so they are just glimpses of Asia, the ones for Beijing are around her 50th postcard.

  The following day we did nothing. It was the eve of the Chinese New Year so we relaxed and watched movies all day. We went to bed that night and were woken up around 11:30 that night by the sound of fireworks going off all around the city including right outside our building. We were on the 20-something floor therefore we had a great view of the fireworks from all around the city. I, for some silly reason, had forgotten how much the Chinese love to set off fireworks on holidays and special occasion and was wondering what was going on until I remembered what day it was. 

   The next day we went to the Beijing Zoo to see Pandas! They are quite lazy animals.

   The next day we went to the Temple of Heaven. I was told that it is somewhat of a tradition to go to a temple after New Years, so we went, along with many, many other Chinese.

   The Temple complex was quite large and laid out like a park. We were able to wonder around enjoying the nature.

   Here are some pictures I took while wondering around a touristy part of Beijing.

  The Bird's Nest Stadium that China build for the 2008 Olympics. 

   The last day in Beijing we went to an Art District of Beijing called 789 Art Zone. It is the artsy part of town and several small art museums are located there. When we went it had an abandoned feel to it with not many people around. Guessing it was due to the Chinese holiday. The entire area was covered in graffiti, except the shops. Here were a few I thought were neat, strange or funny.

   This one made me laugh, just the wording and location.

After the Art District we headed to catch our plane to Seoul, South Korea.