Day Three - Mulan & The Emperors

Today was a full day of full-fledged tourism. We left the hotel early to get on a bus to the Forbidden City, tour-guide included. On the way there we passed by "Old Beijing," or a section of the city that demonstrates how all of Beijing looked before modernization swept the city. I loved it.



As we stood in front of the entrance, a little Korean woman ran up to me and said "picture! picture!" I agreed to take her picture with her friends in front of the site, but she said "no, no - picture with YOU!" She asked me where I was from as she gathered her friends and gestured for Erin and Katie to join in on the photo. That was one of many Asians that day who asked to take pictures with us! Others didn't ask and just photographed us as we walked by. It was like some sort of Chinese Paparazzi. And it was fantastic.



Once at the Forbidden City, I had a hard time keeping images of Mulan and the concubines lining up before the emperor, or images of the ancient gates being flooded with the enemy. But it was kind of entertaining, as others shared that thought. Unfortunately, most of the buildings look almost identical, making it hard for me to tell them apart in my photos.





Some notable observations:

*There was a "tree of everlasting love," which seemed to be two small tree trunks that curled together and intertwined.

*There was a large red baracade on the ground, which looked like a plank of metal, which was used to board up the doorways to keep out bad spirits.

*There was a room you could peer into with chairs and beds and carpets - all which the Emperors had used. Apparently some acts of suicide went down in there too, which kind of killed it for me (pun).

*Nine was a royal number, a number symbolizing the divine, and protection. They believed that the number ten symbolized the heavens, so they grouped small statues (which sat on rooftops) in clusers of nine, a number closest to the heavens, or groups of three.

*Facing out from the palace, the lion-dragons (I can never tell which they really are) symbolize male and female. At events in the Palace grounds, the women would stay on the left side with the female lion, while the men would stay on the right side with the male lion.



From the Forbidden City we walked through to Tien Anmen Square, a place of uprising and revolution. There wasn't much to see there in terms of sites, but leaning against the gates and taking in the scene was pretty powerful.



We had lunch accross the street at the Peking Duck. Being borderline vegetarian, at first, it disturbed me to see skinned ducks hanging on display. Even the artwork on the walls consisted of murals of dead ducks. I kept reminding myself that we are in CHINA. So things are bound to be foreign and push the lines of vegetation. Whatever that means. The syle of the restaurant was lazy-susan, as we sat at round tables and spun the dishes around in the middle. I enjoyed looking at surrounding families, making the connection that most restaurants here cater to family-style meals.

We then got back on the bus and went to the Silk Market (again), this time sans-subway adventure, which was a lot less tiring. I think I'm actually getting worse at bargaining. I keep thinking about the livlihood of the vendors and realize that this is how they make a living. To us, their sales strategies are invasive and annoying, but to them it's a matter of whether or not they'll be able to put dinner on the table.

We were on schedule to see an acrobat show (which I expected to be mind-blowing), but first went to a near-by restaurant for dinner. They put us in an upstairs room, and we took up all the space. Again, everything in the restaurant was served family-style, not by individual dish. Oh, and "white wine" = whisky..? Oh, China.

Our tour guide took us to the show early so we could make sure we had our seats (the front row was amazing) - which we did, for about 15 minutes; a group of Japanese people started yelling at us, in Japanese, to get out of "their" seats. They didn't have tickets to prove it, so I was pretty confused as to why they thought they were entitled to sit there. Our tour guide tried reasoning with them, and agreed for us to get up - until the Japanese group started laughing and saying, "get out of our seats" in english. Our tour guide wouldn't have that, and told them that they were being disrespectful, got the staff involved, and took them away. She then turned to Annie and said, in Chinese, "I hate Japanese people. So disrespectful!"

The show WAS mind-blowing. They didn't allow photography, though I wish I had snuck a picture anyway. They had act-after-act of balacing on top of one another, juggling 10 balls while tapdancing, tight-rope acrobatics, and 10 girls balancing atop a moving bicycle. It was beyon incredible.

Needless to say we were exhausted, again. While we were laying in our rooms making plans for that night, we fell asleep fully clothed...until I woke up at 2am and realized that we had fauiled again to explore Beijing nightlife. I think I said something along the lines of "I can't keep living this way" as I stumbled into the bathroom and changed my clothes. hahha.

Tomorrow we have our first company visit at Microsoft, which is actually around the corner from the hotel. We might go to the zoo after. I need to see some pandas!

Love,

Karen