1731 7-24-10 (but for the 22nd)
Well Thursday we woke up at the crack of dawn to see the Tiananmen Square flag rising ceremony only to be told that even waking up at 5 was too late for it actually started at 5:04 (yes it actually is that specific, it is increased by one minute everyday). But since Dad and I were already up we decided what the hell and headed out there anyways, we also said goodbye to Anna who was talking off for Tibet. I'm glad we did because we ended up getting into the Forbidden Palace's gardens before anyone else was really there (there might have been only 200 or so people in the entire park that we saw). So that meant we got to stroll around and just look at various things without having to navigate the crowds. We spent a lot of this time hanging out by one of the rivers and talking about China, America, and the future.
Once we had our fill of the gardens we headed out to Tiananmen Square. On the Square it is made very obvious just how smoggy Beijing is. I though Shanghai was bad but Beijing is so smoggy it's hard to make out the buildings clearly at the end of the square.
By this time the crowds had also started to pick up, for instance the line to see Mao's body was about 150-200 yards long. My father and I didn't feel any need to go see a dead guy. But walking around the square let us see a lot of the big government buildings and such, plus it was cool to just be at this extremely historical site. Getting back required us to go through about 5 underground tunnels in order to actually reach the subway stop, what a pain.
Once back in our hotel though we relaxed for a little bit before meeting with Booz for lunch. Lunch was in fact pretty good, consisting of some stuff that at this point I can't remember. We then went and hung out at his dorm for a little bit, just sitting around listening to music, swapping stories, and watching short videos. But pretty soon Booz had to go and leave for Xi'an so we said our goodbyes and went back to the hostel again.
For the most part we hung out there for the rest of the day, just talking to all of the international visitors. By this point a French family and a family from Norway was staying at the hostel. They were all super nice, and the Norwegian father, Henry and my dad hit it off real well. That night everyone in the hostel gathered up and made sweet dumplings made with rice flour, water, and red bean paste (which is a natural sweetener for a lot of Asian desserts, in Japanese we call it taro) boiled in brown sugar water. Tons of fun and they were quite good.
With our stomachs full we were off to bed.
woahh, i don't know japanese, but "taro" is not the same as "red bean"
ReplyDelete