Another day, another early morning - we checked out of our hotel by 8am on our way to the Forbidden City and Tian'anmen Square. Erin had gone out to get us breakfast again before we departed for the day and noted that it was surprisingly cold outside. She warned James to bundle up and she put on her long underwear in an attempt to prevent any unnecessary frigidity. Unfortunately, despite the extra clothing, we were still very cold. Our time in the Forbidden City kept us outdoors for about 4 hours straight and it was very windy. In fact, other than some brief periods in Berlin and Munich, this was the coldest day we've had to face on our trip.
The Forbidden City was a very large series of palaces that the Ming dynasty lived in throughout the 16th century. The palaces were decorated in red and yellow (the most commonly seen colors in China – red symbolizes “fortune” and yellow symbolizes “earth”). There were also many, many statues of dragons, indicating the palace is a place of power.
Anyone who has seen the movie The Last Emperor would probably recognize the Forbidden City as it was the setting for the actual movie. The movie was based on the last emperor of China, who lived in the palace. Our tour guide explained to us that the emperor was only in power from the ages of 3 to 6 years old, before he lost his power and an actual government system began in China. Despite not being the emperor anymore, he still lived in the palace until the age of 24.
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| Taking the public bus to the Forbidden City. |
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| James shivers in front of one of the Forbidden City's many palace buildings. |
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| Some of the ornate decoration within the grounds; notice the extensive use of red and gold. |
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| James and Erin huddle together for warmth inside the grounds. |
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| Heavyset Asian Brad Pitt anyone? |
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| Seriously, it was really, really cold. |
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| James poses in frot of the main square inside the Forbidden City. |
Following our time in the Forbidden City, we went further outside and stopped in Tian'anmen Square. Howard spent time explaining the area and told us that Tian'anmen Square literally means "gate of heavenly peace." The actual gate was built in the 1400's by the Ming dynasty. We saw some of the iconic areas from the protests (and shootings) that occurred in the area in 1989.
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| This very large picture of Mao looms over the square, which is also patrolled by Chinese soldiers. |
By the time we stopped for lunch at a nearby restaurant, we were all eager for some warmth. We once again shared entrees - there wasn't any duck at this meal, but we did have chicken, beef, and pork options. We tried to eat a decent amount of food because we had an overnight train later and we knew we wouldn't be able to have a “real” dinner, but rather only snack options.
Once lunch was over, we had about an hour before we had to leave for the train station. We decided to stop at one of the nearby malls to pickup some beverages and snacks. We found an enormous supermarket, called the Lotte Market. The store was like a Walmart Superstore as it had everything from groceries to clothing to sporting goods. We hurried back to the hotel where we joined the rest of our group in a van that took us to the train station.
The Beijing train station was mammoth! It was by far the largest train station we had ever seen. We took the crosswalk bridge and entered the train station where we went through security (the first time we've had to do this in a train station), and headed to gate 8. Once inside, we realized that there were many options for food and we shouldn't have worried so much about purchasing snacks and beverages beforehand. But, we have seen a variety of different train stations, and we've learned from these experiences that it never hurts to show up prepared for the worst.
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| A view from the street of only part of the monsterous Beijing Train Station. |
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| One of the many information boards in Beijing Station. |
We were pleasantly surprised by our train. Like some of our previous overnight trains, we had 3 bunks in each section. Erin was on the bottom and James was on the bunk above her. Luckily, our entire group was in three cars that were all next to each other making it very easy for us to “hangout” together. We even played a group card game during the ride on the train! Of note, smoking is common in China, and they do not have the same anti-smoking laws we have in the USA. So, the train was a bit smoky. One of the women in our tour group purchased several masks beforehand and shared them with us on the train. We were grateful as wearing the masks did make it easier to breathe and sleep.
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| James shares a moment with the three German women on our tour. |
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| Tabitha heading up to her bunk for a long night's train ride. |
Our group watched the movie “Despicable Me” on one of our netbooks during the train ride. It helped pass the time a bit and was fun to watch a movie with other people. The lights on the train automatically go out at 10pm, so we were all in bed by then. It didn't take much time before we eventually nodded off.
