Beijing (Peking)

Well we arrived in Beijing on 07/07/07 and we thought that would bring
us good luck- as it turns out, it did! We had a fabulous time in
Beijing from our Hostel (which was acutally like a hotel really) to our
tourguide, it was a great experience. We started off the first day for
Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was hot and muggy there,
but we are tough and forged ahead anyway. We got to what we thought
was the center part of town where two large gates were standing and we
didn't really know what these things were, so we decided to snap a
bunch of pictures and try to figure out what it was later. We stopped
and bought a map- there are tons of individuals roaming around with
"Mao" goods - watches, books, postcards etc. and our map cost $1, but
we couldn't read it well, so we just kept walking. We enjoyed
meandering around the open area of Tiananmen Square, until we realized
that in preparation for the Olympics, they had closed the building that
housed Mao's body for renovation. What luck! So- I got over it, and
we moved on to the Forbidden City which is just adjacent to Tiananmen
Square. The entrance to the Forbidden City is the famous large picture
of Mao on the reddish wall- it's a great photo opportunity. Once I get
settled in here at the school, I'll try to get some pictures to my
brother so you can see what it is that I am talking about. As we
ventured toward the Forbidden City, we were approached by a Chinese man
wanting to know if we wanted an English tour- it seemed a little
sketchy at first, but we went ahead with it- and found, as his buisness
card says, "Michael, your friend in Beijing" He ended up truly being
our friend in that he gave us well over a 3 hour tour (when he
originally said an hour and a half to two hours) and then took us to
eat and ordered for us. We haven't had food as good as when Michael
ordered for us! We finished at the Forbidden City and then agreed to
hire Michael on for our next day- the trip to the Great Wall!!!