Forbidden City, Summer Palace, and when the train was new - 30 September 2008

Today we went to the Forbidden City in the morning.  Off of Tiananmen Square, this sprawling complex was used as the imperial palace during multiple Chinese dynasties.  Our local guide took us through Tiananmen square, and explained that we were in the country during a week-long holiday, meaning that it was more crowded that usual, and that we wouldn't be able to see Mao's tomb.

Tiananmen is still decorated for the Olympics and Paralympics, including the paralympic mascot, Fu Niu Lele, who is a cow, and to my mind resembles Mooby (which is itself a reference to the Old Testament golden calf).  Judge for yourself:

Initially I felt that we were rushed through the Forbidden City, but as the day wore on it became clear that it's just too large to meander through.  You either need to move (like we did) or plan to spend a full day (or more).  The scale is just massive:

After touring the Forbidden City we went to lunch.  Originally we planned to take the bus, but after 20 minutes of waiting (and seeing multiple busses with the right number going the other way) we gave up and walked to the restaurant.  

During the walk, Melissa had the misfortune to be accosted by a lady trying to sell something.  When Melissa said "No thank you," the lady would just yell it back at her "NO THANK YOU."  This went on until they inadvertently got their feet tangled, and the lady fell down.  It was surreal, frankly.

After lunch, six of us went to the Summer Palace.  Jen and I tried to get there the day we joined the GAP tour, but ran out of time.  Unfortunately we were all worn out by the time we got there, and decided (after a walk down the aptly named "Long Corridor") to just sit and relax.  The funny thing is that we were quite the object of curiousity.  Folks in Beijing are used to foreigners, but because it was a nation-wide holiday there were plenty of people who had never seen anything like us before.  Some would surreptiously take photographs, trying to make it look as though we were sitting in an particularly interesting place.  Others actually asked if we could take a picture together:

One of these things is not like the other ones...

We also spent some time discussing the phenomenon of "split pants."  Evidently infants in China wear onesies with a slit in the nether region so that they can do their business whenever they need to.  This is discussed (at some length) in Lost on Planet China, so it didn't come as a surprise to me, but it's still shocking to see.  No pictures, though, thanks to my paranoia regarding border crossings and child pornography laws.

After a quick dinner we all loaded on a bus to head for the train station.  Thanks to a traffic jam, we got to carry our stuff several blocks, meaning that I was basically dressed up as luggage for Halloween.

We made it onto the train, and were introduced to what Mil (our trip leader) refers to as "White Lightning".  I can assure you that it is neither mighty pleasin', nor pappa's corn squeezin's.  Instead it is the Chinese version of rotgut.  For context, we later found it in a grocery store for about 40 cents per quarter liter, and that's too much.

It's not the worst thing I've ever tasted but it's definitely not something I'd seek out.