Beautiful Beijing

January 24, 2010
"This is your morning call." – Oh the words we love to hear at 7:30 A.M, from the Chinese lady at the front desk. We learned today that if you don’t answer your wake up call, they personally come and knock on your door to wake you. If you still haven’t crawled out of bed, they go to the professor’s room and give them a master key to come wake you. This happened to some fellow students this morning. Luckily, we answered our wakeup call on the first ring.
This morning we woke up ready for a day of adventure. Today we were to experience the "true" Beijing. We left the hotel and headed straight for Tiananmen Square. On the way Li, our tour guide, told us not to take pictures of the men in green army uniforms. These are soldiers. They never smile, and if they catch you taking a picture of them, they make you delete it off your camera. We actually witnessed this later in the day as we were walking into the Forbidden City.
We arrived at Tiananmen Square around 9:45am. There was not much traffic on the way there, because it was a Sunday morning. Tiananmen Square is known as the "Gate of Heavenly Peace". The square is much different than I imagined. I thought it was a big sidewalk, with the famous building on the side. I was very wrong. At first the square looks nothing like the pictures. Tiananmen Square can hold over 1 million people. It was at least 2x2 football fields. There are communist style buildings lining the streets of the square, with Mao’s Mausoleum in the middle. We took many photos before crossing the street to enter the Forbidden City. There were locals trying to sell various Mao products as well as communist looking hats, and animal hats.
We arrived at the Forbidden City, across the street from Tiananmen Square. The Forbidden City is known as the "heart of Beijing". It is one of China’s most magnificent architectural complexes. It was created in the 1400’s! The Forbidden City was the distinguished residence for the imperial court and dignities until the early 1900’s. We walked through many courtyards and gardens. Each had the same architecture and layout, but appeared to have slight differences. We learned that 30,000 people used to live in the Forbidden City. It was basically a city within a city. To see all the structures, thrones, buildings, bridges and stone floor that were so many years old, was definitely fascinating and incomprehensible. I was once again, in awe. I am constantly reminded of how much America is a "baby" compared to China and its history. It amazes me constantly the technology they used back then, that has so well preserved so many things for today. Walking through the Forbidden City took about 3 hours! It was gigantic. Our tour guide told us we would walk 6-8 kilometers a day while we were in Beijing!
After visiting Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City we headed to lunch. We were supposed to have a "Western Style" lunch. Most of us have fallen in love with Chinese cuisine and have no problem eating it for every meal. I haven’t craved western food in forever, and I know I will miss the Chinese cuisine upon my return to America. I just can’t get enough! There are so many vegetables and sauces and flavors, unlike American cuisine. We put away our disappointment and decided to make the best out of our western meal. Let me just tell you, that was difficult to do. There was absolutely nothing American about this western meal. It is so different to see what eastern people think western people eat! I tried some broccoli, which was very delicious. The "fried spaghetti" also known as, a version of Chinese noodles was the best. The cheesecake wasn’t even half bad, even if it was still frozen. Nothing is overly sweet or salty here. Although, we all look swollen, the salt seems to be hidden somehow in the food.
We left the restaurant and headed to Wangfujing Street. Wangfujing Street is much like Shanghai’s Nanjing Road. There is a side street full of stick food as well as souvenir stands. Perpendicular to that side street is the actual Wangfujing Street. The street consists of many upscale Chinese and international brands. There were tons of people walking up and down the street. We walked about 10 stores down and decided to go explore on the food street again. Wangfujing is known to have great food during the nighttime and lively entertainment. We are planning to experience that tomorrow night. Cities are always prettier under the night sky anyways. On the food street we saw arrays of different types of food. These different types of food included: chicken fetuses, large black scorpion, small scorpion (which was still moving), starfish, sea horses, grass hoppers, centipedes, squid and other various animals we couldn’t identify. We decided to taste scorpion. First of all, let me preface that scorpion, although an animal, does not count as meat. It counts as a bug. Yes I tried scorpion. I ate one of the legs. It was impulsive, for sure. When will I ever have the chance to try scorpion on a stick again? The bite I took wasn’t even enough to swallow, just enough to taste and get caught in my molars. The scorpion surprisingly tasted pretty good. It was black, and tasted like burnt bacon. I can’t describe the aftertaste, but I didn’t care for the after taste. Everyone who ate it liked it. Many people ate the claws, head and other legs. There were two on the stick. We avoided the torso because we heard that you could taste the bodily fluids, which were bitter. We even got our tour guide to try scorpion for the first time in her life!
After Wangfujing Street we headed back to the hotel. Some of the students went out to a dance club last night, and we were extremely tired. I stayed in last night, but the lack of sleep on the train to Beijing was catching up with me, and I was tired as well. Emma, Victoria and I all came back and fell asleep around 4 P.M. Needless to say; we didn’t wake up until about 7:30pm. Emma had a migraine, so Victoria and I went to grab some dinner in one of the hotel restaurants. She had dumplings, I had pizza. The pizza was so tasty. It was thick bread, with tomato like sauce, lots of cheese, topped with different kinds of onions. It contained very little grease and was by far, the healthiest pizza I had ever eaten. For hotel food, it was quite inexpensive. We ordered Emma food to "take away", and brought it back up to the room.
We were already ready to go back to bed once we got back up to the room. We all showered and watched a movie on television before hitting the sack! We have a busy, busy day tomorrow. We are finally seeing the infamous Great Wall!