Forbidden City, an art place, shopping

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Today we went to the Forbidden City which was super hot and crowded and had all of the unpleasantness of Disney World without the air-conditioned Space Mountain ride. I would have appreciated it way more if we had come on a cooler day at a less busy time of week. I really didn't like all the people bumping into me and cutting in front of me. Then we went to a place in the city (I forget the name now) where they do a lot of calligraphy and Chinese painting. I enjoyed that a lot - I love Chinese paintings! We bought some paper for our calligraphy class. Finally, we returned to the Wudaokou (near the university) area and I shopped around the night markets with Alex and Claire! We tried bargaining. We were pretty bad at it but did manage to get ~15 % off our sunglasses.

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Photos

故宫 (Gugong)！
"Beijing huanying niiiii!"

Kin and the Large Stone Carving
"Carved out of a huge natural stone in the early Ming Dynasty." And then (this seems to be a theme with the places we visit!!) Qianlong re-did it!

Dra-GON
I like the expression on his face.

Dui Xiu Shan = "Hill of Accumulated Elegance"
Hill made of rocks with a cave.

Calligraphy Shop
Ancient characters are beautiful and look a lot like the things they're supposed to represent!

Government Shop
Where everything was like certified to be real or something. They had a GIANT ink stone. See 张老师 for scale.

Sunglasses
Alex and I both got sunglasses at the night market.