Beijing Day 2

The first real day in Beijing was really tiring and a lot of fun.  Our day started out with a look at the National Opera Theater, an enormous egg shaped place that was built only a few years ago.  After that, we went to Tianamen Square and then toured the Forbidden City.  This involved a ton of walking because both the square and the city are HUGE.  

The square was basically a big flat area with tons and tons of people taking pictures.  Across from the square, the front gate of the Forbidden City could be seen with a giant portrait of the former Chairman Mao Zse Dong.  When you enter through this gate, there is a large courtyard, with another gate at the far end.  There are two more courtyards and gates after this one.  The amount of area that each section takes up is astonishing.  I was blown away by the detail of the paintings on each building and how beautiful and colorful everything looked.  After the gates, there is the actual city and many buildings where Emperors had presided in the past.  The amount of people touring this place was amazing and it felt like Disney World on steroids.  One funny thing that happened was that people would come up to you and want to take their picture with a white person because it was the first time they had seen a white person in their lifetime.  We all felt like celebrities.

After our tour of the Forbidden City, we were all wiped, and we had lunch in a very good restaurant.  There is a picture of the meal below.  Then we went to a street famous for yogurt and cheese near the Forbidden City.  We did not get back to the hotel until 10pm and did not get to eat dinner until 11.  That night we were in charge of getting our own dinner so a bunch of us took a taxi to a huge 24 hour Cantonese restaurant and had 19 dishes.  We played Russian roulette with one of the weirder dishes and it turned out to be a really fun night.  After that, we went to a karaoke bar and sang deep into the night.  It was a lot of fun.  Here are some pictures from the day:

This is the National Opera Theater.  It was enormous and it had a cool moat.

The front gate of the Forbidden City with the portrait of Mao Zhe Dong.

A line for seeing Mao in Tianamen Square. 

The view of Tianamen Square.

A bridge inside one of the courtyards of the Forbidden City.

The entrance to the actual Forbidden City.

One of the Emperor's houses in the city.

My friend Garrett and Me with the Forbidden City in the background.

Our lunch after the Forbidden City.

A bunch of us on the famous street.