Beijing Baby!!

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March 1st 2006

Published: March 3rd 2006

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LPW

Neehow

We kept trying to get into these govt buildings, the guards did not find it funny.

OK so we arrived in Beijing at around 7am a a few days ago. It was snowing. Pretty cool especially seeing as though it was the first time Ryan had seen snow falling. Jumped on a bus then an underground train. Walked about a km in the cold and eventually found the hostel. Far east Youth Hostel. Ahh, so nice.
Went exploring. Walked to Tiannemen Sq and on the way continually tired to get into govt. buildings. The Chinese guards were not too impressed but Ryan and I had some good laughs. Got to the square, amazing. Huge. They pack over a million people in here sometimes. If you stand in the middle you are at the Memorial to the Fallen Hero's. Looking straight ahead you see the Forbidden Palace, to your left the Paliament (Great Hall of the People), behind you is Chairman Mao's Mausoleum and to your right is the massive Chinese national history museum. Awe inspiring. These two nice Chinese girls came up and talked to us. Took us to see there art work, drank lots of tea in the warm, bought no art work. Went to Mao's body. Masses of people were lining up and apparently it

Chinese Parliament

From Tianemen sq, right in front of it was where the famous incident occured with the man being run over by the tank in 1989. crazy

was not that many, some guy said due to the fact that it was so damn cold. Went to another art gallery and I bought for myself a beautiful painting of two Koi fish representing Yin and Yang. It is painted on silk. Next day we went to the Forbidden City. Forbidden because up until 50 years ago, common people were not allowed to enter. There are 9 999 rooms in all. It dates back to the Qing dynasty and was only ever used by the Qing and Ming dynasties. We had a guide with us, Sunflower, who was brilliant. Saw a 250 tonne stone carving of Dragons chasing a ball. Saw where the concubines lived. The emperor supposedly had up to 3000 concubines, lucky man! After the city we went and got some noodles and Jiang and Bros. Then went and got traditional Chinese massages. My lower back was hurting and afterwards it was perfect.
Beijing is big, 14 million people but its downtown is small and not big. There are so many things to see here. So many.
Also went to the Lama Temple. Largest Lama temple outside of Tibet. Massive, have an 18 meter high Buddha there.