Tian'anmen square and Forbidden City

Tuesday, 9/2 written by Priscilla

After a long day of travelling and late night drinking, waking up at 8:30am was a bit painful. Steph and I also did not remember to close the curtains before going to bed so the sun beaming on us early morning was not comfortable. The only nice thing about the curtains being open was I got to see a really nice sunrise when I woke up for a split second.

The friendly voice of Alan woke up us that morning to go to the Vietnam embassy to figure out our visa. We met there shortly afterwards to realize it was closed, and have to try again tomorrow.

We had lunch at a hakka place next to the days inn where erik and alan was staying. The food was pretty good, especially the fried whole fish. Then we headed off to tian'anmen square.

Like our guide book advised, we entered through the south gate, Zhenyangmen, hoping to get a 40m high view of the square. Of course that didn't happen. We just paid a $3 entrance fee to read some confusing info about the square and forbidden city. The lookout point was closed.

We then proceeded onto the square itself. It is supposedly the greatest public square in the world. The square was designed as a space for mass declaration of loyalty, however it was used from april to june of 1989 as a protest space for democracy and artistic freedom. On June 4, 1989 the chinese government did a military move to stop protest, which killed probably thousands of protesters. The count is uncertain. Despite the sad memories, the square today is filled with a lot of tourist and locals hanging out, and lots of paralypic displays. It's obvious china is very proud to be hosting the olympics. Did you see the opening ceremony?!??!? How impressive was that!

We then headed towards forbidden city, where we first had to cut through the chairman mao memorial hall. It's where the famous mao portrait is displayed. The portrait is literally at least, by my estimation, one story tall. We all have different opinions on mao, but I have to say there are obviously some chinese people who go there to pay their respect.

We didn't see it, but the guide book said even though mao wanted to be cremated, his body was actually freezed and drapped with a red flag in a crystal coffin. Every morning, his body would be mechanically raised from the freezer and it looks unreal like wax or plastic. It sounded a bit eerie for us.

At the forbidden city, we were all really impressed. We got the audio guide, which we expected to be narrated by roger moore. It wasn't, but the guide was still helpful.

Most of forbidden city was built in the 15th century and was in use until the 19th century. The forbidden city was where the 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties operated the country. Ordinary chinese were forbidden from even approaching the walls of the palace. There's 800 buildings and 9,000 chambers. The emperors, empresses and concubines rarely left the forbidden city. The only other men allowed are eunuchs, to protect the authenticity of the emperor's kids. To be buried whole, since confucianism held that disfiguration of the body impaired the soul, they would carry their testicles in bags hung on their belts. So all those people who used to watch chinese soaps, now you know why that little detail existed.
Also, boys be ready to be jealous, the emperor had a lot of concubines. It's been recorded that Ming dynasty alone had almost 10,000 concubines. Each day the emperor had a choice of which one to sleep with and the chosen concubine would be delivered to his bed chamber naked with a yellow cloth wrapped around her, and carried on the back of servants because her bound feet prevented her from walking. Yes lots of naughty naughty at the emperor's bed chamber.

We went through all the magnificent buildings. It's amazing how they built it back in the days with all the beautiful designs and colors. Literally the buildings looked like it was covered with silk. There were also great stone carvings..lots of dragon carvings...I even kissed one! There was also one set of huge steps that were made of one stone, and it estimated it took 20,000 people to slowly deliver it there. The power of population.

After hours of walking our feet were pretty tired. We walked around wangfujing street were all the major shops like gucci, marc jacobs and macdonalds are. We also headed to a night market off the main street where they sell street food like scorpion, starfish, sea horses, and such on sticks. Steph really wanted to try the scorpion because her mom did on her last visit, but didn't want to do it herself. After walking through the whole street, she finally got a vendor that would eat it with her if she purchased it. As she was gathering her guts to buy it, she saw it moved! The scorpion was still moving on the stick!!! The vendor reassured her it would be fried before she eats it...but she backed out in the end. I was not brave and only ate some yummy shrimp balls.

Steph and I then headed off to walmart to restock our tolietries. The walmart was pretty impressive, very american....although we couldn't read any of the labels or find ponds face wipes. I also needed to do some pointing and acting to figure out which bottles were shampoo and conditioner.

We then headed back to charles' place to shower and change before going to dinner. By the time erik and alan came over, steph was already tired so she skipped out on dinner...which was very special. We had dinner at North 66 degrees. Do you know what that is? That's the beginning of the arctic circle...north cape rings a bell? If not you are obviously not friends with erik. North 66 degrees is a norwegian restaurant that just opened a month ago...yes norwegian in beijing.

The restaurant was decorated with all norwegian things like norwegian flag besides a chinese flag, voss water, and pictures of slopes, trolls and people in traditional norwegian clothing. My favorite was the huge projector screen with scenes from different parts of norway. I loved playing the I've been there game. For our appetizer we had a seafood platter and king crab salad. I really enjoyed the king crab. Entrees we had were halibut and cod. Dessert was rice pudding...not so good. Overall we were pretty impressed with the meal and the service was good despite the fact that we were the only ones eating at 10pm at night. But I do warn you if you ever decide to try, if they run out of something in the menu, they just don't tell you and leave it out.

By midnight we finished our meals and went to our respective stays for some nighty night. We also decided to call it a miss to see the temple of heavens at 6am.