Beijing - Christmas Vacation - DAY 3 & 4

I decided to break this into 2 blogs because it's a lot to take in on one, however, I didn't take into consideration that when I posted them I should have done it in reverse order so that you could read in the correct order ...oh well, sue me!

DAY 3:

Before I started my trip my mom warned me not to do any protesting in China, specifically in Tian’anmen Square. She has heard about what happened back in the 1980s with the protestors being killed, and was obviously worried that Wayne & I may fall into some type of similar situation. Thankfully we were able to avoid this.

Day 3 started with our visit to Tian’anmen Square, which definitely has an interesting history, but doesn’t take longer than 10 minutes to visit and see everything.



The history:

TIAN’ ANMEN

Initially built in the 18th year (1420) of Emperor Yongle’s reign in the Ming Dynasty. Tian’anmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace) was the south gate to the Imperial City during the Ming and Qing dynasties. On October 1, 1949, the founding of the People’s Republic of China was solemnly proclaimed here, and Tian’anmen has since become the symbol of China and its capital Beijing. The largest city square in the world, Tian’anmen Square is directly south of Tian’anmen. In the center stands the Monument to the People’s Heroes, behind which is Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. On the west side is the Great Hall of the People, and on the east, the National Museum of China. The square serves as the site of grand assemblies on important and festive occasions.

Once you move through the Gate you enter what is known as the Imperial Palace or The Forbidden City. To walk through the Forbidden City took close to 2 hours and was full of incredible architecture and beautiful structures.

History:

THE FORBIDDEN CITY

The Palace Museum, formerly known as the Forbidden City, was the Imperial Palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Over a span of more than 560 years, 24 Emperors lived there. It houses a great variety of rare cultural relics and works of art. Covering 720,000 square meters, the Forbidden City is the largest and the most complete complex of ancient palatial structures extant. It constitutes a component in the world treasure-house of culture and art. Globally noted for its magnificence, the Forbidden City     i                                                             is attracting numerous tourists both from home and abroad.

Why is it called the Forbidden City? Damned if I know, I couldn’t understand the tour guide.

It was a morning full of history and exploring ...exactly what we signed up for. However, before we could eat we needed to ensure that we were taken advantage of just one more time before the day was complete. So we went to see the doctors. (oops, I think I confused that and put it in the last blog. Oh well, live with it.)

After lunch, while the rest of the tour moved on to go shopping for fakes (purses, watches, etc.) Wayne & I, along with the family that we had made friends with excused ourselves to go back to our hotel and enjoy the rest of the day on our own.

After a much needed nap, Wayne & I set out on our own Chinese adventure, on foot, with no idea where to go. So we went right, and walked straight until we found a restaurant where we wanted to eat. It was nice to simply walk around and experience the area, taking in all of the buildings where people live and the stores where they shop every day. While it is somewhat familiar and similar to Korea, it is also drastically different at the same time.

After over half an hour of walking we found a restaurant called Fancy and had wine. We were sold! And even though we were in China, I can’t tell you how amazing it was to browse through a menu with food choices that I recognized and to sip a glass of wine, both experiences that I have not had in the past 3 months. We even found some cute little stores to do some shopping in ...and the best news ever, the shopping was authentic and cheap!






The last part of our day, may have been one of our favourite – the best purchase we made the entire trip – a case of Redbull. We couldn’t have been more excited!

DAY 4:

Day 4 was simply our travel home and while it took us over 10 hours door to door, it was very relaxed and pretty uneventful. And if there is one thing that makes your ‘home away from home’ feel that much more like your home, it’s leaving it for a few days and realizing how comfortable it is to return.

Overall our trip was amazing. We had a ton of fun and we got to see the majority of the attractions that we wanted to see – Wayne may just make a traveller out of me one of these days.