Today we visited the Forbidden City.

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Geo: 39.9165, 116.391

After a late breakfast we headed out for our first day in Beijing. It was a beautiful sunny, clear day. First thing to do was to get a SIM card for our phone. Then we walked to the Forbidden City. For almost 500 years the Forbidden City has served as the home for emperors and their households. It was built between 1406 to 1420 and has 980 buildings and covers 180 acres. The crowd was huge, so we mainly followed the masses of people till we finally made our way to some garden areas.
From the Forbidden City we crossed the street to Jingshan Park. There we climbed the man-made hill which is the highest point in Beijing. The dirt to create the hill was excavated from the Forbidden City moat. At the top we sat and enjoyed the view.
We then wandered through some hutongs which we would call alleyways back towards our hotel. We enjoyed a yummy ice cream bar and picked up a few white peaches to enjoy later.
Back at our hotel we rested a bit before heading our for dinner at a local restaurant near our hotel. It was good food, but we both need more practise with our chopsticks! Hopefully by the end of our three weeks here we will be pros! On our way back to our hotel we stopped so Jim could get his haircut. The woman spoke no English but we managed and he came out with a nice Mohawk!! Ha ha.
Funny thing, today we did not see one cow in the street. Quite different from India!

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