A Busy Day in City Center

To Sum Up:

11:00: Qinghai Park, waiting for other MIT kids.
12:00: Forbidden City
15:00: Tiananmen Square
17:00: Bell Tower, shopping
18:00: Dinner
19:00: Great Tea Shop
20:30: Arrive home

Allow me to tell a story in pictures... all but the end.

Got to the Forbidden City (north), and my MIT friends were late. So I went into the park to the north--it was only 2yuan, what could go wrong?



It was great. Since it's Dragon Boat festival, lots of people were out, singing:



And dancing:



I climbed my way up the hill in the center of the park:







And arrived at the top to find a mini-temple (with the Buddha inside, but it is not polite to photograph), and a Gazebo:



But the real treat was the view:



Especially the north:




But my friends arrived, and we were off to the Forbidden city. I must admit, though, the park was probably my favorite part. The Forbidden City was, well... big. We entered from the north:



We entered to find some gardens:





And then it was huge-building-with-golden-roof after huge-building-with-golden-roof. Again. Big. Bigger than you can think:





There were cool sights. Lions:



A huge plaza where the Emperor's court would show up and bicker:





As well as the Emperor's Throne:



After 3 hours in the behemoth of a palace, we got a bit tired of it, and set out south, to Tiananmen square--in daytime, this time:



A better shot of the Chairman:



The Square was rather busy with Chinese tourists:



Somehow, I didn't get any photos of this, but lots and lots of folks kept asking to take pictures with us. For a few of them, they gave me a Chinese flag, which I, of course, hoisted heroically into the air. Long Live the People's Republic of China! My impression is that the Chinese psyche largely reflects the government: they want the West to approve, and to get along, and to share. We were happy to.

We then moved on to the Monument to the People's Heroes, and I stood, proud, a hero of the People myself:



We then moved all the way south to two rather impressive Collectivist statues:





And I got to pose with them, championing the human spirit, or something:



On our way out, we almost got walked on by the PLA, which was marching through the square, Changing the Guard:



So we took a cab over to Drum Tower, which was closed, and not terribly exciting:



But then went on to dinner, and tried (somewhat futilely) to tough it out through hot/sour soup, hot/spicy chicken, and (somehow!) hot fried rice. I had a bottle of Yanjing to help, but the girls just had tea. Silly girls:



The girls wanted to shop for clothes, and I tagged along, telling them everything was too expensive, and telling them we should leave and look somewhere else. The tactic worked--along with Sarah (our toughest and most frank customer), we managed to knock 33-50% off all our purchases... we still got ripped off, but less than most Westerners were!

Finally, we went to this place where one of the girls (I think) ended up buying a dress, but this really friendly dude also had a tea shop, and kept serving us the best tea I had ever drank, by far. The girls can back me up on this. He also kept pouring some of the pot out on a turtle, over his wooden table (which just sopped up the tea) when he made new pots. It was, I think, ceremonial in some way... possibly the kind of thing one would get in a professional teahouse. But we will go back for some of that tea, and take it home before we go... even if it was $170/kilogram. We won't get much, we promise.

So, some bargaining, some sightseeing, and all we have to show for it are some burned tongues. But tomorrow, we get up at 4AM to go to a local village, so it's bedtime.