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Published: March 26th 2013
Tienanmen Square
Yeah, it's a big square!As usual, we decided to dive head first and begin our first full day in Beijing with Tiananman Square and the Forbidden City. Tiananman Square is basically just a large public square (the largest in the world, in fact!) with a memorial, monument, museum, and a few other landmarks that are easy to miss unless you know what to look for. O, and a lot of security. The square is easily accessible from the ring subway line (line 2), but we ran into some long security lines when trying to get into the square. I would recommend bringing your passport or ID with you everywhere in China, but especially here since they were checking IDs. I guess we looked foreign enough that they waived us through.
Being with kids, there isn't a whole lot to do in the square other than walk around and talk about some of the history. We really just walked through on the way to the Forbidden City (aka Beijing Palace Museum, aka Chinese Imperial Palace). More really long security lines. This was also our first introduction to a 'helpful traveler' who happened to be headed our way and knew of a shortcut. Turns out the
shortcut passed right by a 'friend's art exhibition', and he had free gifts for our kids, wowwee! After quite a bit of rejection, we walked up to the ticket counter and bought what we thought were tickets for the Palace. Walking around the gardens to the East of the Palace, we quickly realized that we were still outside of the city walls, but did bypass the long security lines. It was also well past noon, so the restaurant in this garden was a great find for us to take a lunch break. After lunch, we find an entrance that fed directly into the ticket booth to actually get in the Palace, and that our tickets did not work. Ok, lesson learned. Move on.
The Forbidden City was impressive. If you have ever seen some of the movies set in Imperial China, or The Last Emperor which was filmed in the Imperial Palace, it does seem just as majestic in person. We had prefaced this trip with quite a bit of history and films about the Chinese dynasties for our kids, so they knew what to watch for and what to expect. The one thing that we had not planned
Family photo
Just not OUR family! on was the incessant publicity that our 3 kids received from the Chinese tourists. We were told that blonde children are an unusual sight for many Chinese, so they would probably receive some attention...mostly people wanting to have pictures. So, when it started with a few girls who just wanted to take pictures with our kids in Tienenman Square, we thought that was normal. Inside the Forbidden City, large crowds would line up for their turn to hold and pose with our kids. Every time we tried to stop and tell the kids a story about a sight, people would just start snapping pictures of them, which turned into more people wanting to be a part of the scene. To be honest, everyone was very nice and it obviously gave them a lot of delight to see our little golden haired boy smile back, so we played along when possible. But when it began to disrupt our kids' enjoyment (mostly with the girls), we had to shift away from the centerline of the city and start exploring some of side buildings and talk on the fly.
Aside from the paparazzi, the Forbidden City was still one of the highlights
of our trip since it is so laden with history and Chinese culture. It turned out to be a great first sight, since many of the other sights around the city can be related back to Imperial China and have strong ties to the Palace.
After leaving through the North gate, we had about an hour before we needed to start our trek toward the next planned attraction, so we walked into Jingshan Park, which is across the street from the North gate. Walking up the large artificial hill that overlooks the city, we were able to see some of the popular park activities, including Tai Chi, Mahjong, and Jianzi, all of which we had read about in the children's book "Good Morning China", so this was a great extension to the book. At the top of the hill, a large statue of Buddha was in the Wanchun pavilion, and the kids saw a great example of someone praying differently than we do (we've been trying really hard to explain to them that people worship in different ways, which will be reinforced later as well).
The walk down the hill was much shorter but left us with a
How many brass knobs?
Trivia: There are 81 knobs on all doors, a lucky number. little less time than I'd like to get to our next stop, which was the Chinese acrobatics show at Chaoyang Theatre. We reserved discounted tickets from theatrebeijing.com, and the representative was to meet us at the theatre 45 minutes before the show. Unfortunately, what stood between Jingshan Park and Chaoyang Theatre was a good 1/2 mile walk and 2 subway transfers...during rush hour. Everything that I have read about the Beijing subway specifically states that rush hour subway traffic is brutal, at best. Had I stopped to read the map at the station, I would have also found that there is a new line 6 that would have shot us straight there, but the Fodor's Beijing guide book did not have this line, so we headed to the ring line. More on this experience later.
So, let's assume we magically appeared in front of the Chaoyang Theatre 15 minutes late, frantically looking for a sign with my name on it and half-thinking that the person gave up. Lo and behold, there she was, holding that sign. She handed me a piece of paper with the details of our reservation to confirm. I handed over the cash, and she ran
A Guardian Lion
Trivia: Males are always holding a sphere. off. What the...???
Recovering from the shock, we stood there, watching the other tour groups walking around with their tickets (the theatre doors had not opened yet), hoping that she actually purchases our tickets for us through some secret back-door ticket office. Well, this could have been true. She ran back around the corner with our tickets and displayed them and handed over. Done deal!
The doors open, and we walk in to a concession counter stocked with microwave popcorn bags, already popped, and all kinds of other typical movie theatre like treats. The prices were kind of steep for the local standards, so we passed and went in to find our seats. The tickets were mostly written in Chinese, with 2 numbers clearly visible. It was impossible to tell which was the row and seat, but we paid for side aisle seats, so we guessed and found someone sitting there. A helpful attendant took us to the middle section, behind the rather large and empty 'VIP' section, and told us to sit there, despite the fact that two of the seats didn't match our tickets. O well, no one later complained.
The show was actually pretty
entertaining--almost Vegas-like. All of the performances were stunts we've seen on America's Got Talent, but taken to another level, and with more talented performers. Some were advertised as gold medal winners in various competitions (I marveled at the fact that there was actually a circus act competition). It seemed like a short show, just over an hour, which was perfect for the kids. Alex slept.
Coming back to our subway station, it was dark and we were hungry. Jessica spotted a strip of restaurants and decided to browse through them. Too fancy, too empty, too...unsure what they served,...ah, here we go, a moderately full restaurant that was clearly serving noodle dishes. We walk in, find a seat, and was handed a menu with pictures and lots of Chinese. I point to a few things as usual...some beef noodles (a soup), sweet and sour pork (a rarity), rice (cheap filler), and some green tea. Brecklyn has become fond of drinking Chinese tea, so we are letting her have some whenever we eat, and it's a good way to get her to drink.
Looking around the restaurant, we were most certainly the only foreigners, but no one seemed to care
except the group smiling at Alex, as usual. This time, they leave us alone, and our food arrives in less time than our local McDonald's can assemble 5 McDoubles and fries. The only problem was that the 'green tea' was actually Coca Cola. We ask the waitress, who brings back the menu, and clearly points at the Chinese characters written beside 'Green Tea - 30 RMB'. I think about going into charades, acting out 'I'm a little tea pot', but decide that it's late and it's probably easier to deal with Brecklyn. As a joke for the rest of the trip, Coca Cola was known simply as 'green tea' amongst ourselves.
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