We left the hotel promptly at 8 and headed for Tiananmen Square. It’s much bigger than I expected and today it was full of people and floats. It was the last day of an eight day holiday marking the establishment of the current government.
We could take pictures of anything we wanted, except we were cautioned that taking a picture of someone getting arrested would probably get us arrested.From there, we walked under the giant portrait of Mao and into the Forbidden City. Home to the Emperor when there was still an Emperor, the palace contains 9,999 rooms, number considered lucky.
Last stop before a short break back at the hotel was the Temple of Heaven, where, twice a year, the Emperor would offer a sacrifice in hopes of a good crop.
After dinner, we attended a shortened, westernized version of Chinese opera. The structure of the music is entirely different and to my ear sounds like fingernails on chalkboards accompanied by very unhappy cats in heat.
The food, at least today, is unremarkable but plentiful. We'll see what develops.
We start tomorrow promptly at eight. We head first to the Great Wall. Other stops include the Olympic stadium and some tombs from the Ming dynasty.
2 comments:
"we were cautioned that taking a picture of someone getting arrested would probably get us arrested."
This is my favorite part. Such a different place.
Yay! Thanks for commenting... I knew there were some readers out there!
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