Okay, so today we did Tienanmen Square. We took the subway, which started out fine but got very crowded very quickly. If i remember correctly, this is the largest public square in the world.








Mao Zedong Memorial Hall is at the south side of the Square. This Hall is divided into three halls and Chairman Mao's body lies in a crystal coffin in one of the halls surrounded by fresh bouquets of various famous flowers and grasses.







Thought this was a pretty cool statue. It is inside the Forbidden City. Looks like half turtle half dragon.









Shot taken standing inside Tienanmen Square. With so many people in Beijing, I thought it was going to be more crowded. After walking the square for a bit, we went behind it to see "Old Beijing". Pretty cool. One street looked like very old construction, but it was only built a few years ago in anticipation of the Olympics. There were some old places there though. We checked out a very old eastern medicine pharmacy that had all kinds of stuff. You could buy a 100 year old ginseng root for 180,000 RMB, which is about 26,000 bucks. Were going to get one each, but they only had one so we decided against it. Haha.

This is a shot of one of MANY buildings inside the Forbidden city. We went through it pretty fast and it took us about 2 1/2 hours. I think if you looked at everything you could spend a day in here! It is very expansive and surrounded by a large moat.







Another statue inside the Forbidden City. There are usually two of these when you see them. The male has one thing under his left paw and the female has another thing. I read what the things were but have forgotten. Sorry. There is symbolism to what they have and the reason why, but it has been like sensory overload and I have already forgotten it.....


May stay close to the hotel tomorrow and relax before having to get on the 15 hours of plane rides we have waiting for us on Monday. We may try and hit the swimming cube and maybe explore more of the Olympic village.