Beijing

Today was our first full day exploring Beijing. Ex-roommate had to spend the day at work so Amnesty, Ma-My, and I headed out to Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tian'anmen Square is basically a large square, not much to see. But we made the most of it by reading about the history provided in our rough guide. We thought about climbing Zhengyangmen, the south gate, which once was the boundary between the imperial city and the commoners. However, due to the haze we decided the view probably wouldn't be very rewarding. So after taking the obligatory photos of Mao on the front of Tian'anmen (the gate of heavenly peace) we headed into the forbidden city.

Two hours later we had explored the ceremonial halls, the imperial living quarters, and the imperial garden. It was really interesting to read about the history of all the different buildings; learning how they were renamed by the different dynasties and learning what the buildings were used for. The forbidden city is so spectacular even the bathrooms have garnered a four star rating.


Plaque outside the toilets in the forbidden city

But what exactly does the four star rating get you? Well, it gets you a squat toilet that flushes automatically and the option of purchasing tissue. If you don't purchase the tissue before you use the toilet you WILL be kicking yourself for not spending the extra Yuan.


Example of a squat toilet. Note this is not an automatically flushing toilet as shown by the foot pedal at the top.

A highlight of today was ordering lunch. Without ex-roommate as a translator we decided we would brave the language barrier and find a restaurant on our own. The first restaurant we walked into was serving food that looked delicious, unfortunately we couldn't figure out a way to communicate what we wanted to eat. So instead we found a restaurant with pictures posted on the wall of the available dishes. We then relied on our abilities to point and smile to order what we wanted. I am still not 100% sure what exactly I ordered but it sure was delicious.