Tian An Men, Forbidden City, and the Temple of Heaven

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This weekend was very productive in the way of seeing some tourist hot-spots. We had one of our long weekends, so we were able to leave for Beijing on Thursday morning, as opposed to Friday night.

Friday, we got a bit of a late start, so we didn’t want to go to any attractions that had a closing time. Thus, we did the entrance to the Forbidden City and Tian An Men Square. The entrance to the Forbidden City is so imposing! The walls are so high, which is good when you want to keep out invaders. There’s also a giant picture of Mao when you are walking in, which makes a great photo opportunity.

Then we walked over to Tian An Men square. The area is so nice! The square is much bigger than I imagined, and mostly open space in the front. Towards the back of the square there are some monuments, and the Mao memorial hall, where you can still see him preserved. We were too late to go in, but when Mom comes, I definitely want to do that.

After Tian An Men we sort of stumbled onto this area called Qianmen which is “old Beijing”. It was a street that had been modeled to look like Beijing used to. Of course, instead of finding old-time stores and homes in the buildings, there were things like Starbucks, McDonalds, and H&M. There was one store that had been there since 1911, a hat store, and that felt very historic.

On Saturday we got a much earlier start and went to see the Temple of Heaven. The weather the entire weekend was so gorgeous, so we wanted to do sights that were outside. Save all those museums for the winter! The Temple of Heaven is situated inside of a park, so the entire area is really relaxing. There is an area in the park that has never been destroyed or re-done, and it has 900-year-old Cyprus trees growing there. Pretty cool.

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Photos

Forbidden City
The door to get into the Forbidden City - pretty big

Forbidden City
Inside

Forbidden City
Really huge walls

Forbidden City
The guards actually live inside the Forbidden City

Forbidden City
Mao and I

Tian'anmen Square
These people really wanted some shade....

Tian'anmen
This is mile ZERO where every road in China is considered to start.

Qianmen
Thank goodness that 'M' is the same in every language

Qianmen
some fried snacks. Couldn't bring myself to try anything

Qianmen
fried scorpions

Qianmen
Old Beijing

Qianmen
giant chopsticks

Temple of Heaven
A 900 year old tree

Temple of Heaven
Here we are on our way into the Temple of Heaven

Comments

[Marthe]

Pictures, yeah!
The snack part was gross but I like the rest of the pics.