Circles not allowed!

I woke up to knocking on the door; my roommate had arrived! His name is Del (short for Derek), and he is from Essex. He seems like a nice guy.

We had a welcome meeting (and more importantly, tea!) at 6pm, so we headed down to meet the rest of the group. William is our guide, and he seems very nice and enthusiastic. There are 9 in the group (not including William): myself and Del, Alfredo (from Brazil), Tina and Julia (from Australia, mother and daughter), Chris(tine) and Simon (from Bolton, husband and wife), and Pat and Mike (from Boston, husband and wife).

We took a short walk to a place famous for it's Peking duck. William explained that the Chinese tend to have buffets and just share all the food and the cost, so that's what we did: sweet and sour pork, some sort of beef, gung bao chicken, a few veg dishes (including some notably nice green beans!) and of course Peking duck! Drinks were beer, and "white lightning" (local brewed, 43%). It was all great, and William explained a few things afterwards such as tipping (you do), looking after your money (don't let people steal it) etc.

Not Peking any more!... yeah sorry

Alfredo and I got given half a duck head. I ate the beak... then William told me it wasn't really edible... whatever

After that, Alfredo, Derek and I bought a couple of very cheap beers and drank them outside the hotel, then and early bedtime, due to the "early" start for Chinese breakfast tomorrow. 

Early was 7am, which I'd consider pretty standard for this type of trip. We walked a very short distance to a steamed bun place. Once again it was kind of a buffet, with 3 different kinds of pork steamed buns, and some corn porridge. The porridge was quite bland, but the buns were delicious! I had 7, because there were 2 left at the end and nobody else wanted them...

Just like breakfast back home >.>

After that, there was a little time to freshen up, and visit the supermarket to get water etc. before the first highlight of the tour; Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City! At the supermarket we met my nemesis:

Who would do such a thing?!? 

It was a bus and 2 trams to Tiananmen Square, and William told us we'd need to push to force our way on, so I got my elbow pads ready. Surprisingly though it wasn't half as busy or chaotic as I was expecting. After the tram we got to take a special tourists-only underpass to emerge in Tiananmen Square.

Aside from being the site of a massacre, Tiananmen Square is the biggest square in the world. It was expanded after someone visit the red square in Moscow and found it to be suitably communist. At one end is the (equally communist) mausoleum of Chairman Mao, with his preserved body in a crystal coffin inside (just like Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and Lenin in Russia). In the centre is a war monument, and at the other end is the Tiananmen Gate to the forbidden city, after which the square is named. It is also the place where Chairman Mao declared the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Me and the monument of people's heros

They put a fountain show on for us at 9:47. No idea why. Also note the giant portrait of Chairman Mao over the Tiananmen Gate, communist nations love those!

 The only parts of the city wall remaining in this area. The rest was destroyed during Mao's reign because he wanted "a more modern China"

We had a look round the square (but didn't queue to see Zombie Mao), before heading through the Tiananmen gate to enter the Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City was the home of the emperors of China until as recently as the 1910s, and was forbidden because you couldn't enter without the emperor's permission.

The Forbidden City has 9999 and a half rooms in total (I'm not quite sure how you get half a room, but there you go!) because the Chinese believe the emperor of heaven's palace has 10,000 rooms, so they had to make less, and the whole complex took 100,000 artisans and 1,000,000 labourers 14 years to build.

Honestly there isn't too much to explain, and what there is is better with the pictures, so prepare yourselves for a storyboard!

A panorama straight after passing the Tiananmen gate. Many people as apparently it's the most visited place in China

A male guardian lion. You can tell it is male because it is holding a ball and not a baby lion

The second open area. Each of the central buildings serves a boring and indistinguishable emperor-y purpose, they all have similar thrones in (and you can't go inside)

Panorama version

Gardens on the way to the temple of martial virtue. They were actually more exciting than the temple itself, though it was much quieter, which was nice!

A xuanwu, or dragon-turtle. I don't know why it was there, but it is cool!

Fancy roof ornaments and wood carvings etc. They were like this on every building!

The sort of thing that is in all of the central buildings. I had to elbow a whole crowdful of Chinese people away for this photo, so be grateful!

Generic Forbidden Temple scenery A

Generic Forbidden Temple scenery B

A carving made from a single piece of stone, depicting 9 dragons, and the biggest carving in the place, known as the long carving

Nice, random wall carving thing

A dragon. Holding a fireball I think, as dragons tend to

The imperial gardens, my favourite place in the Forbidden City

A nice pavilion thing in the imperial garden

A ceiling dragon in the above pavilion

After all that we exited out of the north gate (other end from Tiananmen gate), and went for lunch, which was a buffet similar to last night, but with no duck or rice, and Beijing noodles instead. We visited the lama temple in the afternoon too, but I'll save that for my next post!

Editor's note:

So the highly anticipated new feature of the blog is here! Introducing you to:....

MISTY PIC OF THE DAY!

Because whose day is not made better by an adorable photo of an adorable dog, even though she was not feeling photographic today as I chased her round the house for this photo...