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Day 3 Beijing
Entry 6 of 23 | show all | print this entry |
Kathy here. It is actually Day 5 as I type this we are in Xian, China, but we need to go back and try to remember Day 3 and 4. We were just too tired to make an entry then. So let's see... Day 3 our guide Scott picked us up at 8:30 and we head to Tiananmen Square which unfortunately was closed to the public because of some major national and also international meetings taking place there. There were police ALL over the place. Scott said there would also be secret agents all over as well (CIA). But in a way, it was fitting because that's what Tiananmen Square seems like it should be to me. All I knew of T Sq was the student protest that got stopped back in the early 90's when they brought in the military and tanks. I remember it was a major embarrassment for the Chinese government. Scott told us that to this day, the chinese people cannot get much info about the incident. Their attempts to google it are blocked. Anyway, the square is HUGE, and we got to see the big poster/photo of Mao. Then it was on to the Forbidden City, which is built straight beyond T Sq, and then from the Forbidden City, you just keep walking until you get to the Summer Palace. Honestly, photos cannot begin to give you a sense of the scale of those 3 major sights. They are all 3 just gigantic in size. And it was all for just the royalty and his or her family and those deemed worthy of being invited in. The Summer Palace was built by one of the emporers for his mother's 60th birthday (Kelly...Ryan...hint, hint). We also went to Jingshan Park, where there are so many beautiful individual paintings on the various buildings. Chinese art is everywhere. It's magnificent. The weather was beautiful, not quite as crystal clear as on the previous day, but sunny and fairly warm.
I can't remember what we've said about meals but they have been wonderful. The hotel we are in has an excellent breakfast buffet each morning. I eat a lot for breakfast because it is almost all western food and I can start my day with lots of energy. For lunch this day, we went to a wonderful restaurant with incredible traditional chinese atmosphere and excellent food. Guests were placed in these little individual rooms with doors and windows that faced a beautiful little pond with waterfalls and bridges. The staff were all dressed in period costumes. The young girls who were servers were beautiful and they wore those funny little shoes that were like elevated platforms. Jack asked to take a photo of her shoes and she was giggly embarrassed. Scott told us that if she showed Jack her feet, she would have to marry him!
That night we were so tired, we stopped at a little grocery convenience store by the hotel and had an ice cream bar for dinner. In bed by 8:30 pm.
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