Mike’s birthday, we easily memorized our first full day in China months ago. Without a lot of research and given the convenience from our hostel, we hit up some of the most well known attractions on the first day out. We visited Tiananmen Square and the final resting place of Chairman Mao. Interesting that he is covered with red blanket with the Soviet hammer and sickle. Most of our afternoon was spent inside the Forbidden City. We quickly learned that everything is set up along the cardinal directions, with north being the most revered. After walking through many gates and reaching many halls we investigated the eastern side of the complex that is a little more museum like. We reached the northern gate and the guided tour in our ears shut off, it was time for some food! The little inner city lakes nearby have a bunch of cafes, bars and restaurants. We found a lakeside table in the shade and polished off a small keg of beer with some pizza.

We had found a Grandma’s Kitchen in the guidebook and figured we had to go, but they were renovating so we were out of luck. Luckily there was a similar place next door that also served a good breakfast. We rounded out the morning by strolling through a small park and the embassy area, watching Tai Chi and going to the Ancient Observatory still resting on old city walls. In the afternoon, we headed to the nearby Temple of Heaven. The place is more of a park with the usual north-south axis of temple and gate structures. It was used by the emperor for sacrificial ceremonies. We went the “wrong” way through the park-like area, started in the north and worked our way south. We saw the grand finale at the beginning and had to swim up stream against the tour groups, but probably better that way instead of dodging the same people over and over again. The architecture was slightly different, involving the use of circles in the designs to represent heaven and much more blue tile work as well.

Failing to look up when sunset was, we ended up spending close to two hours on Tiananmen Square waiting for the flag lowering ceremony. We tried to take pictures, but had more pictures taken of us and with us. We even were handed a baby to pose with. After watching how great China is on the two jumbo screens that play a patriotic video on a continuous loop, it was finally time for the big event. We were a little disappointed to see how UN-ceremonious it was. No music was played, the crowd still chit-chatted through the whole thing, only standing to take pictures or to see the action, instead of out of respect. What surprised us the most was that they stopped eight lanes of traffic so the color guard could cross the street to retire the massive flag in the Gate of Heavenly Peace.

Saturday morning we were out and about with the rest of Beijing to “escape” the city heat and visit the Summer Palace. Traditionally the emperor used this as his summer home away from home. Now it is a park with a huge man-made lake. After visiting more temples, places of residence and taking in the famous marble boat that bankrupted China, we returned to the city to visit yet another park. After leaving the Forbidden City we skipped Jingshan Park which includes a hill made from the dirt removed to form the moat around the Forbidden City. I’m sure the views from here are pretty nice on a clear day, but I’m not sure how often that happens. Instead, we saw the city disappearing into the smog, still impressive to see.

Our last day in Beijing was actually spent visiting the Great Wall. We arranged what turned out to be a somewhat sketchy tour of the wall. We visited the second scenic spot of the Badaling Great Wall. It is currently being restored in parts and there isn’t anyone manning the ticket booth. The first scenic spot is apparently quite touristy and heavily trafficked so we were happy to be away from that. As the construction zone gave way to stairs to the wall it turned out to be quite nice. There were other Chinese visitors walking the wall as well. The guide, who had never been on this part of the wall before, said we were walking six miles. We went past the restored area to the natural, overgrown area. The views were still a little smoggy, but it was still amazing to see the wall disappear into the hills. As we descended “six” miles away, the driver was there to meet us to take us to lunch and return us to the city.

After our days of non-stop action in Beijing we are off to Tai’an were the population hasn’t passed the one million mark, yet!