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Published: October 21st 2017
Geo: 39.9165, 116.391
After breakfast we drove to Tiananmen Square. It is very damp, cold and polluted today with no sunshine. The aftermath of APEC was definitely gone. As we drove to the Square, Jo explained how Beijing is trying to deal with the traffic and smog. In order to get a license for a car, you have to apply and are put into a lottery system. Also, public transportation is really cheap (2 RBM or $.32) to ride the metro. Riding the metro is not pleasant as there are 10 million riders per day and they literally hire "pushers" to push people on. The bus could not stop at the Square so we had to get off quickly. There were lots of vendors selling hats (mostly red star green ones with ear flaps) and several of our group bought them.
Tiananmen Square is the world's largest public square -- the size of 90 football fields! The large painting of Mao is on one side facing his mausoleum on the opposite side. The Square is surrounded by the Forbidden City to the north, the Great Hall of the People (where many of the APEC meetings and banquet were held) to the west and
two museums on the east.
We wandered around on our own after getting a briefing from Jo. Though not full, by any means, there were thousands of people. This is a major tourist destination for foreigners as well as nationals. Later on the bus, after being prodded, Jo told us she knew very little about the Tiananmen Square "protest". She knew that a student was run over by a tank only because a tourist from the west showed her a picture. She said that the State controlled media did not report on any of the violence and they didn't know of any deaths. When we tried to look it up on Yahoo, Wikipedia, etc., we got an error message that said, "inaccurate site" and nothing could be pulled up. Western media reported any where from 100's to 1000's of fatalities. The videos and still shots of Tiananmen don't begin to show its massiveness and the political significance of this place. It is very impressive and impactful.
From Tiananmen it is a short walk to the Forbidden City and the Imperial Palace. It was completed in 1420 and was the home to emperors of 24 dynasties. The complex has 9,999-1/2 rooms because
of the Chinese love for the number 9 and because, other than God who has 10,000 rooms, the emperor is the next powerful. No ordinary people could enter the complex. Only the emperor's concubines, children and servants (all eunichs) were allowed in the inner court. The emperors were always fearful of being murdered so there were 15 layers in the courtyard so that no one could dig in and kill him. The outer courts were for politics and the inner court was the living area. The palaces were always guarded by two lions -- a female and a male. The ones on the right are always females because females are always right!
The buildings were brightly colored and there were animal figures along the rooflines. The more animals, the more important the building. We could not enter any buildings but could only look inside. The complex is enormous and dwarfs Tiananmen Square. The last section we visited was a beautiful rock garden. Outside of the Forbidden City, was a manmade hill made from the dirt from the moat.
After spending a couple of hours in the Forbidden City, we returned to the bus through a gauntlet of vendors. We drove to a
shopping mall for the best meal so far at the Tian Yi Xiao Guan Restaurant. Many Chinese were eating in the restaurant, not just tourists, and it made a difference.
We drove to the airport for a 2-1/2 flight to Xi'an. It was on time and we had no delays which is evidently very unusual. The drive from the airport to our hotel took about one hour. As we approached Xi'an we saw the old city wall and towers all lit up which was quite spectacular.
Although Jo (and some other reviews) suggested we would not like the Grand Noble Hotel as much as the hotel in Beijing, it was actually very nice and quite a grand hotel. We got checked in quickly and Brennan went straight to bed. Dave walked down the street and found our first bottle of Chinese wine. It was not very good, but at least it was wine and not beer!
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