Saturday Sept 13

Forbidden City

• A short walk from the hotel directly west gets us to the Forbidden City. Waiting for the doors to open we saw some army guys running in formation in a smallish circle. All the army guys are very very slim. Some are quite tall but all are slim.

• The first thing you notice is the impressive size of the City and you really can only see parts of it at one time. We arrived at the opening at 9 am so it was not as busy as I am sure it would be later on in the day. Still lots of people. Lots of the side rooms have artifacts from the days when the City was built and also from ancient times. Museum like but spread out in all the buildings surrounding the main north-south arrangement of the main halls.

Tianamen Square

• Leaving the Forbidden City we were going against the flow of people. Many thousands were heading to the City. We really dodged the major crowds there. Or not! There were many more people in the square. Probably 90% or more are Chinese people on holidays or just getting out on Saturday – really hard to tell. With such a large population it could be either or.

• The Square is also large – a recurring theme in Beijing. More army guys but this time they were marching to the Mao’s Mausoleum in the center of the square. I damn near got run over by them and I saw them coming from a ways away. Also repeated nearly everywhere are army guards standing at attention. Usually two by a gate but sometimes in the middle of nowhere.

Beijing Planning Museum

• At the south end of the Square is the Beijing Planning Museum. This is a very nice museum that isn’t too large but packed with great info about Beijing. There is a 4 by 4 foot bronze showing the surrounding hills and Beijing itself. Then there is a huge bronze of the City of Beijing on the wall – three floors tall – visible from the floors and the escalators.

• The best part is the model of the city occupying half the building on the third floor. It is completely up to date with the Olympic Venues and new buildings like the CCTV building as well as buildings being completed now. You can view it from the fourth floor as well. They have a show that lights up the streets with LED lights and colors. Kind of like a night view. There is also a larger model of the district where the CCTV building is.

• Part of the building was occupied by the British Columbia Tourism Board complete with The Bay store. We didn’t go in! On the walk back we came across a large mall not far from the hotel and ate in a food court.

Local Hutong

• From our hotel we went to a Bank of China to see about tickets for the Paralympics. Got some for Tuesday just in case Pat couldn’t get us any. From there we went for a walk through a Hutong just north of our hotel. We kind of felt like we where walking in someone’s backyard. At one point we did wander into a private place and woman was trying to tell us that. We got the message and moved on. Quite a contrast from the Peninsula to the Hutong.

• We then walk around the block – that is, the major roads back to our hotel

CCTV Building

• We wanted to go for dinner and found a Thai restaurant near the CCTV building in the Wanda Center. Took the subway for the first time. The stations where you transfer are not all that close together. The stations located at major intersections means it can be quite a hike to get to the exit you want as well. It was bright out when we left but the hotel but getting dark when we came out of the subway. We couldn’t find the Wanda center! We then decided to walk to the CCTV building. Too dark for photos and the area seemed unconnected to streets with places to eat. This made us a little sad as hunger was setting in.

• We decided to go back to the hotel and ended up eating across the street. We would have eaten anything by then!