Kensinger's Kwips: China, 8th of October

Steamed Dumplings for Breakfast :)

For my final full day in the city I decided to brave the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square. I had heard earlier in the week of ticket lines being 2 hours long and hoped that by today this would no longer be true. At first I went the wrong way looking for the Forbidden City and knew it couldn't be that hard to find. Tienanmen Square is the largest of its kind in the world...you can't just miss something like that :) As you will notice from the pictures it was very hazy out. This is not Fog but Smog...the pollution is that bad. This was unfortunate because I was hoping for blue sky's like on Monday when I was at the Wall. But if the sky was clear I did not see it in Beijing.

Entrance

First view of the main buildings

Design on the doorways

One of the many meetings rooms

It was really cool exploring the city and tiring. It was huge! The gardens were amazing and I wished I could somehow make everyone else disappear and stroll through the trees and ponds. I also paid some extra money to get an audio guide, which I was very glad I did. (It is the box hanging from my next in the above picture.) I got to hear stories along with the information about each of the different sections of the city and it has a little GPS type locator's so I just had to go towards the red dots on the box for the next part to start. It did have a little bit of a glitch but worth paying for to get a fuller experience of the city.

In the Royal Gardens

One of the side walkways through the city

One of the rooms for the Empress

Part of the moat surrounding the city

After seeing the city I went and checked out Tienanmen Square which is across the 12 lanes of traffic in the center of Beijing. They have a cross walk for people that goes under the road.

Tienanmen Square

Flowers in the Square

From the Square I went in search of a Formal Tea house to grab some Tea and lunch. Finding the Tea house was an adventure as I knew a general area and address. Thankfully most streets are in Chinese as well as English so I set off. After walking for 15-20 mins I got some bad directions and decided to trust my gut and turn around. I stopped at another restaurant to ask them and the lady indicated it was closed. Tired and hungry I sat down and ate at her restaurant. I was disappointed but not much that I could do.

After lunch I made my way to the Metro station so I could meet up with one of the girls at my Hostel who is living in Beijing. She was going to show me a food street. I didn't take pictures of the food street because I was too busy looking at the food and trying to decided what I wanted to eat :) They had tons of choices but we chose flat bread with paprika and some other seasonings, deep fried beans, Chinese donut, deep fried batter rolled in sugar (like little sticks), chocolate PB bread with a slight coffee flavor, a delicious sunflower seed snack shaped like a rice cake but made of sunflower seeds and honey. It was a great way to eat dinner...and everything cost me just over $2. As I was leaving the street I even bought a sweet potato from a street vendor. They have half of a metal barrel flipped upside down with fire inside the barrel and the potatoes sitting on top baking. You eat the whole thing, skin and all. And it was soooo good :) I even saved part of it to eat the next morning.