First Day in Beijing- Forbidden City

We woke up around 9 and got ready for our first full day in the
awesome city of Beijing, China. To give some perspective on the city,
Beijing is geographically the same size as the country of Belgium. I'm
sure it would take weeks to do it justice, but we just had three days
so we hit all the highlights. Our first stop... McDonalds!

As anyone who has been to China and is not a native knows...and I'm
sure we've made it very clear...the hardest thing about being in China
is fulfilling a basic need..eating. We got up and spent 2 hours trying
to find a McDonalds just so we could have a full stomach to sight see
on. We never actually found one, but after passing the Mao entrance to
the Forbidden City and walking all the way through Tian'anmen Square
we settled on a KFC. Finally we had enough fuel to enter the Forbidden
City.

Jenny thought before we went anywhere, it was vital to get some
perspective on the city of Beijing so she took us up to Jingshan Park.
Jingshan Park was a beautiful park right next to the Forbidden City
that had a large hill with a spectacular view. The hill was actually
made from the dirt that was dug out to create the moat around the
Forbidden City itself. The view was spectacular! On the hill there
were pagodas and buddhist temples. Despite the freezing cold wind
blowing us, the hill was a great welcome to the city of Beijing.

One thing I thought was really interesting was a locust tree at the
bottom of the hill. During peasant uprisings, the last Ming Dynasty
Emperor (Chongzhen) fled to the Jingshan Park and hung himself and a
servant at the foot of the hill on a Magnolia tree. The interesting
aspect was the different accounts of the story. Next to the tree there
were three accounts of what happened to Chongzhen. One portrayed him
as a mass murderer who first killed his wife, daughters and
concubines, and many servants all to save himself and when he finally
decided he could not win he killed himself. One portrayed him as a
hero who killed himself because he wanted to save his loved ones and
his country, and his servant hung himself in dedication. Finally, the
third story blamed the peasant uprising and death of the emporer and
his servant as a problem with the political system. There are a lot of
things in Chinese history that have been manipulated for one reason or
another.

On the way to Forbidden City from the park, we saw our first Chinese
toddler peeing on the street. Chinese children have free reign to use
the toilet (through a slit in their pants!) anywhere they chose
without any reprimand! Noone but Liz and I seemed to notice or care
that a kid was peeing in the middle of the sidewalk. I spent the rest
of the walk to the Forbidden City watching my step to avoid puddles.

Because Jenny had already been to the Forbidden City a few times, she
dropped us off, and after chatting with a Chinese, English speaking
tour guide about wanting a foriegn wife (divorced women are OK), we
said our farewells and headed in to the palace. We picked up the
English audio guides on our way in. Forbidden City is huge and we
spent three hours exploring the city. The highlights were the Clock
exhibition (with clocks from all over the world) and the Hall of
Mental Cultivation. The Mental Cultivation Hall was really preserved
similiar to how it must of looked when the Ming and Qing Emporers
lived in the palace for hundreds of years. A lot of the over 1,000
buliding in the palace were painted over, so it was hard to imagine
what it looked like hundreds of years ago. The palace was huge, and it
is funny to imagine how the Emporer lived in the city with just his
family, some officials and his concubines (a prestigious job back
then) and never really got outside of the walls to the country he was
supposed to be ruling. We spent time looking at old relics, some a
thousand years or more old. Unfortunately, the audio guide was not
very helpful. We spent more time just exploring and reading the
English explanations next to the various buildings.

We met Jenny outside the Forbidden City and headed to Wangfujing, a
happening city center for shopping. We found an Outback Steakhouse and
had an amazing dinner. Jenny reluctantly agreed to go, but I think she
was really happy she did and really liked her food. We headed back to
the hotel, it was after nine by the time we got there, and rested up
so we could get up early and travel about an hour and a half away to
the Great Wall of China!