Today started off with an Egg McMuffin at McDonalds - an auspicious beginning. Tasted SO good, and even had a hash brown with ketchup to go with it (and coffee!) After breakfast, we walked over to the gates of the Forbidden City, and met another one of our friends under the portrait of Mao (the first time I have ever told a friend of mine "to meet me by Mao"). We walked up, around, through, in between, and under a tremendous amount of the Forbidden City, but still didn't manage to see it all. By the end, I had to force myself to stop taking pictures of random red buildings with pointy roofs. Anyone involuntarily subjected to having to "look at Helena's pictures from China" will have to hear a lot of, "well, not really sure where this was, but there's definitely a reason I took this photo... wait... no, forgot what it was..." There was amazing art mixed in with some not-so-amazing art, and I actually may try to go back again before I leave to spend a lot of time really pondering stuff, and taking the time to work my way through the Chinese-language captions. There were many cases where the Chinese caption was a three paragraph explanation, and the English caption a one sentence "Property of the Forbidden City Museum". All in all though, it was an amazing collection, and the grounds themselves much more extensive than I had anticipated, even having been warned in advance that the place was huge. At least it wasn't freezing cold, though today's air quality left something to be desired. After we left the Forbidden City we crossed the street to the north and climbed a small hill which was tall enough to give us what would have been an incredible panoramic view of the entire Forbidden City grounds, but the smog limited our vision to only half, and I'm not sure if my pictures came out at all. Don't even want to think what this is doing to my lungs - as bad as DC can get sometimes, it's never THIS bad.
After we left the park, we headed over to Wangfujing Avenue, where our hotel is located (on the northern end). Wangfujing has lots of fun stuff - two Starbuckses, a foreign language bookstore (where I managed to score the latest copy of the Economist, and became very nostalgic reading the Lonely Planet guidebook to New England - Mom, you can tell Franz the next time you're in Bread and Chocolate that he scored an "excellent" rating from Lonely Planet - go Franz!) Conspicuously absent from the bookstore were any books on contemporary Chinese history or political science, though they did have Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" located on the shelf right next to George Orwell's "Animal Farm", which was either total accident, or wry commentary. China is an interesting place.
We had dinner in a small alley famous for its snacks - Beijing specialties ranging from sugar-coated strawberries to scorpions on a stick. I opted for noodles and beer, which was a very satisfying ending to a very busy day. On our way back to the hotel, we passed a knight in full armor pacing back and forth in front of the store. I had no idea what he was advertising - even though he was wearing a red-and-yellow sash across his chest, I could only make out a few of the characters. What on earth a knight could be advertising in Beijing, I don't know - and probably, neither did he.
