We started at Tian'an Men Square. It's the largest open square in the world, around 150 acres. It was originally the main entrance to the Emperial Palace and is now a meeting place that can hold 1 million people (Chinese people, not American :) ).
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Next, we entered the Forbidden City, which was across from the square. It is the largest palatial complex in the world. It was the seat of Emperial power during the Ming and Qing dynasties. There were several intricately painted gates and courtyards that we entered through, and each gate led to a more distinguished and exclusive courtyard and palace. We saw both the outer where the Empirial workw as done and the inner palace where the Emperor lived.
We had lunch at a nearby hotel. It was buffet-style with a lazy susan in the middle of the table. We all at least attempted to eat with chopsticks!
We also visited the Summer Palace. It mainly consists of Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake, both manmade. We walked the longest corridor that was hand-painted with scenes from the area--it was hundreds of meters long! We also took a Tai Chi class! We stood in the middle of a courtyard with an instructor guiding us through moves. We felt relaxed doing it until groups of Chinese visitors walked by laughing and taking photos of us! I guess we stick out a little. :)
Dinner was a Peking Duck dinner. Again it was buffet-style, and they just kept bringing dish after dish!! The food was wonderful.
A few observations of differences between Chinese and American cultures:
Women carry around umbrellas to give themselves shade from the sun.
Young children who are not potty-trained do not wear diapers. They have slits in their pants for when they go to the bathroom instead!
A traditional Chinese breakfast doesn't have the foods we are used to seeing: cooked vegetables, noodles, hot milk and different fruits! Of course our hotel caters to foreigners, so there were plenty of American options as well.
That's all for now! Tomorrow we are off to The Great Wall and the Temple of Heaven. We also hope to see the Olympic Bird's Nest Stadium and a tea house.