Forbidden City & Tiananmen Square

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.

Beijing Confucian Temple

We took an overnight flight into China and did not get much sleep on the plane, so not much was accomplished on our first day in Beijing except sleeping and resting.  On our second day, we went to visit the Beijing Confucian Temple and Imperial College Museum.  The Confucian Temple was completed in 1306 and was the place where emperors paid their respects and offered sacrifices to Confucius until the early 1900s.   We spent a few hours exploring the grounds and exhibits and really enjoyed learning about the life of Confucius, his teachings, and the effect Confucianism has had on China and the rest of the world.