After breakfast, our valiant group set out to see Beijing. Our first stop was Tiananmen Square. It was huge! Around the square are many famous buildings. On the North end of the square is the Forbidden City, where the Emperors used to live during the Ming and Qing dynasties. On the south end there’s a monument dedicated to soldiers who died fighting for the CPC (Communist Party of China) during the Civil War. Further back lies Mao’s mausoleum. Then on the east (or west?) side of the square is the Parliament building. After taking a few photos (and having our photos taken by other people) in the square, we walked to the Forbidden City. We saw the main parts of the palace—where the emperor slept, his wife’s house, the gardens—and also saw the hall of clocks, which is a part of the palace that was built to store clocks that were given to the Emperor as presents from the Western countries (for example: France, England, Switzerland, etc.). After the Forbidden City we went to have lunch in a restaurant. After lunch we went to the silk market. At the silk market we all bought a lot of stuff, but that wasn’t the fun part. The fun part was learning how to bargain, which, in my opinion, was more interesting than the stuff we bought. We stayed at the silk market for 2 ½ hours, then went to Pizza Hut to eat dinner. Thanks to Emily, we all went to a karaoke place. Even though not all of us wanted to sing, we all had fun. But afterwards there was a bit of a dilemma. We were all tired, and did not want to walk anymore. But Chen Laoshi and Yu Laoshi did not want to take 4 separate taxis for safety concerns, so we took the Beijing subway. Although there was one small mishap, we all arrived to our hotel safe and sound. Thus concludes Day 1 in Beijing.
明天见!(See you tomorrow)
Stephanie
明天见!(See you tomorrow)
Stephanie