Re: The forbidden city

We've been up to a lot since we got here. There is a narrow street near our hotel that is quite long and full of shops, restaurants and bars. The first day we ate lunch at what seemed to be a local hangout. We had a really good mushroom dish and some Japanese tofu.

 

After lunch we tried to find a cab (this is harder than it sounds) and headed down to Wangfujing Dajie which is a very popular shopping district. We looked at a few places to see if we could buy a mobile phone but there was a lot of pressure so we haven't done that yet.

 

For dinner there was a hotpot place inside the mall that seemed quite busy. I've never had hotpot before so this was pretty interesting. Our food wasn't spicy so when we get to Chengdu later we'll be in for a treat. After dinner we were pretty beat so had an early night.

 

Yesterday we went in search of breakfast and eventually found a bakery. We both ate for 6 yuan (less than a dollar). I'm getting more comfortable speaking to the locals but it's still a bit of a struggle. Amy is doing better but there are times we are both totally lost!

 

Anyway, after breakfast we took a cab to the memorial for chairman Mao. You walk through it pretty quickly (and can't bring in any bags, water, cameras, etc), and it's really quite eerie. His dead body (or a wax one) is on display for all to see.

 

The rest of the afternoon we went to the Forbidden city and Tian'an men square. The forbidden city is absolutely massive, and we're pretty sure we didn't see very much of it over a few hours (we didn't have a map), but what we did see was impressive. I'll try and put up a couple of pictures. We had dinner that night at the same restaurant as the first lunch (but at 11:30pm).

 

Now we're about to head out in search of some Olympic sights and a few markets. Tomorrow we are going to the Fortinet office in Beijing for lunch.

 

I'll attach a few pictures and see if they work... The last one is of a street vendor selling centipede and beetle skewers.