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Thursday - 10 May - Sunrise is at 0530 with
view from the 13th floor over a non-descript part of the city through very
heavy smog polution and haze. Breakfast is at 0600 - an excellent multi course
buffet with 'all you can eat' of pancakes, eggs, bacon, juice, rolls - plus
many Chinese dishes for those so inclined.
The program director gives a fine briefing and group departs to Beijing
Zoo at 1030 - But I instead take taxi arranged by Ms Weiman to the
Chinese Revolutionary Military
museum. Cost is 14 Y plus tip. The scale of the city map is deceiving, so the
museum is a lot further from the hotel than I expect - good thing I do not try
to walk there. By 0900 the city traffic is very congested. There are many fine,
tall buildings along this main street. There are many elevated cross streets
which must have involved destruction of thousands of homes. The military museum
is a large building with marble floors and very high ceilings to large halls.
It is an extraordinary museum, very well laid out with extensive descriptions
of the exhibits. There is much too much to see in one morning or even in
several days. Another taxi takes me back to the group lunch at a fine
restaurant with detailed written directions by Ms Weiman - but the taxi driver
cannot find it at the place it seems to appear on the sketch map. Fortunately
he can cell phone to our guide for directions. The resturant is about 5 blocks
through narrow alleys from the indicated spot. The local tour guide is waiting
outside as I arrive. Cost is 32 Y plus tip. The restaurant is spacious with
beautiful decoractions and set up for special groups in 4 or 5 small rooms. We
have the first of many daily banquet lunches. The dishes are served family
style, placed on a lazy susan in the center, to each group of 10 at a table and
come one after another so that by the time the last items are served one can
hardly eat any more. See Beijing
After lunch we start the tour of Tian' An Men Square and then the
Forbidden city. There are many people
in the immense square yet it hardly seems populated. There are the usual
souvineer sellers - watches, books, hats, postal stamps and more. We buy
several hats with Beijing Olympics symbols on them for .50 cents each. Then we
enter the Imperial palace - the Forbidden city through a huge gate with the
portrait of Mao over the passageway. There are 6000 buildings in this palace
grounds in which 10,000 people lived to care for the emperor and court. There
are Chinese soldiers in impecable uniforms standing like statues everywhere.
The uniforms are dark green with white webbing. The large crowds of Chinese
move easily through the huge spaces. The Forbidden city has a series of walls
and gates with multiple courtyards between. Several of the important palaces
are being repaired and are covered with wire. But we are able to enter others.
We visit part of the extensive living quarters also and peer through glass to
see the interior furnishings. There are ancient cauldrons used in former days
for fire protection. The rock garden is interesting - unusual formations
obviously assembled from other places.
We return to the hotel by bus, passing more temples and pagodas. Just enough
time to dress for dinner. Bus to a famous Peking Duck Restaurant. It is an
obvious tourist attraction with many huge dining rooms. A chef performs an
artistic carving of a duck into 100 pieces. But the duck is a tiny part of the
huge, multi-course dinner with too many courses to count served on platters on
another lazy susan - we cannot eat all of even one course. Afterwards we try to
walk off the excess by taking the subway back to the hotel and wandering
through some very up-scale department stores. The Chinese are not lacking for
hign-end European fashions, jewlery and perfumes. The subway is clean and
quiet, not architecturally beautiful as in Moscow, but a lot more functional
and clean. Too bed after a fascinating and exhausting day.
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