Beijing Day 1-3/31/09

Our plans for the day were pretty exciting as we were going to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Olympic sites.  It was so much colder in Beijing than Hong Kong as Hong Kong was in the 60's and Beijing was in the 30's. Our first stop was Tiananmen Square which is considered the largest square in the world.  They say security is very tight to get into the square and they make it appear that way but the metal detector went off when I passed through and they didn't even check me.  There were mass amounts of tourists and we kept thinking we were going to lose our guide who was really small and looked like everyone else there.  The square is surrounded by Soviet style monuments and buildings and gives you the feel like you are in Russia.  It was hard to tell whether our guide did not know the whole truth about the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 or that he would get in trouble if he elaborated on it.  All he said was that in 1989 some students tried protesting the government so they were stopped by the police.  The square sits across from the Forbidden City so we headed there next and of course we saw Semester at Sea kids.  Its kind of amazing how we weren't even in the port city and there are many tourists spots to see in the city of Beijing but at that same point a group of SAS kids was there at the same time.  The Forbidden City was off limits to the common people of China for hundreds of years and still today only 2/5ths of it is open to the public. It was composed of many courtyards and demonstrated the power of the Chinese in the Ming and Qing dynasties through its architecture.  After a while it started to get really repetitive as each courtyard seemed to be exactly the same.  It also started flurrying while we were in there which was really cool because we had just asked our guide a few minutes prior if it ever snows in Beijing and he said "it is very rare, especially this late into the winter."  In all the courtyards there was Chinese military doing drills, clearly trying to show off their military to tourists and attempting to demonstrate their power. 

After the Forbidden City it was time for lunch and we headed to a hotel where the restaurant was at.  It was a really nice hotel and restaurant, but best of all we had already paid for all the meals which were included in the price of our tour.  It was also nice how we didn't have to decide what to eat as the menu was preset and they brought out enough food for at least 6 people when there was only 3 of us.  This worked out really well for Phil and I who were down to try new things but Nicole wasn't a big fan of that since she is a picky eater. 

After lunch we headed to the Olympic village is located and went to the Bird's Nest first which is where the opening ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 Olympics were held and several other events.  It was an absolutely massive piece of architecture and seats 100,000 people.  It was even cooler to see in person than on TV and the guide kept taking pride that all of the steel used to make the Bird's Nest was made in China.  We also got to go inside of it and onto the field which gave us the perspective of what it might have been like to be an Olympian there.  Everyone wanted a picture with Nicole who apparently looks like Amanda Bynes and so everyone thought she was a celebrity.  Overall though they were fascinated with American's in general and wanted pictures with all of us as well.  This seemed to be a common theme in many of the places we went throughout the world as people wanted our pictures and autographs in many of the countries we went to.  In the stadium there was the 5 Olympic mascots which everyone seemed to be a huge fan of, but none of us had ever heard of them.  They looked like huge blown up Pokémon characters in five different colors. 

We then ventured across this large piazza and we tried to picture ourselves at the Olympics, being filled with hundreds of thousands of people.  I think the water cube was even more fascinating then the Bird's Nest but each unique in their own way.  The outside of the Water Cube looked like thousands of the plastic bubble windows from the McDonald's play places.  Once you got into the pool area it was this very bright white and then filled with the Olympic colors.  Overall it was much smaller than I would have expected as it only contained bleachers on each side for sitting, all no larger than the length of the pool and diving area.  TV made it seem much larger than it actually is and it really felt no larger than a high school basketball court.  After the water cube our guide took us to a large indoor market to use up some time before dinner.  The market was 4 levels and each level had different stuff such as electronics, clothes or jewelry.  We ended up getting fake North Face jackets because they were really cheap and you wouldn't know they were fake unless you looked really hard at them.  I told this one lady I was going to come back and buy from her, but I ended up going to another place who had a cheaper price so she ended up yelling at me  saying "you are a liar, you are a bad man" and then proceeded to grab my arm.  People in other countries have been much more physical than someone would ever be in the United States so you just have to learn to ignore it and not let it bother you too much.  We had another good meal for dinner at a restaurant near Tiananmen Square and met these kids from the U.S. who were studying abroad in China. 

That night we were heading to this "Bar Street" our guide recommended for us to go to and saw Hooter's on the street corner.  We jokingly said that we should go and then we realized it was actually a good idea as we could definitely go for some buffalo wings.  We were pretty much the only ones there with only one or two other tables filled.  Our servers name was Phoebe and she said her favorite American TV show was Friends, so its pretty clear where she got her English name from.  It turned out they were having lots of good specials that night like 40% off appetizers, buy one get on free beer and ladies night so we ended up staying most of the night.  At the end of the night we all ended up buying shirts and other stuff from the gift shop at Hooters.  I bought a t-shirt and all of the people that worked there signed it in English and Chinese which was pretty cool (I will probably never wear it in my life but it will be a good souvenir).  After that we headed to the "Bar Street" and they were so desperate for business that they were making deals with us over there set prices on the menu so we ended up at this place that gave us beers at like 80% off the menu price.  We headed back to the hotel with plans for climbing the Great Wall the next day.