This is the National Day holiday week (Oct. 1 to 7) in China so many Chinese nationals were on holiday this week. As a result, the touristy places like the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square were extremely crowded. The Forbidden City is quite huge but we managed to get through it in about three hours although we did not go through every section. We have also been to the Imperial City in Hue, Vietnam and Imperial Palaces in Seoul, Korea, which share similar architecture and designs to the Forbidden City, but the Forbidden City just dwarfs them in comparison.
We did not find Tiananmen Square too interesting so did not spend too much time there. It is just a big public square space in front of the Forbidden City. Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum is in the middle of Tiananmen Square, but it was closed the day we were there so we did not have a chance to visit him.
You might notice that some of the photos have a hazy quality to them. The haze in the photos looks like fog but is actually is air pollution. We have never been in a city with so much smog and have been wearing masks over our faces to protect our selves form the air pollution. We leave Beijing tomorrow for Shanghai and look forward to breathing a little cleaner air.
