Dateline: Beijing, head-on

We awoke on Monday morning and, after a leisurely and unspectacular hotel breakfast, decided to head for Tiananmen (the gate sotuh of The Foribidden City, not the square) and The Forbidden City. Thankfully our hotel was a mere twenty minute walk from Tiananmen. While successfully navigating the broad avenues of Beijing the streets were becoming more and more crowded, when we got close to the gate the concept of elbow room had left us about six blocks back. Now I'm used to the crowds of Seoul, but this even made me feel cramped for space. It would not surprise me if 100 000 people passed by Tiananmen that day. Tiananmen is a famous place, most of you would probably recognize the giant painting of Mao that hangs on the wall, and the top of the gate was where he proclaimed the birth of the People's Republic of China in 1949, and is a mandatory photo op for the Chinese. We climbed up to the top of the gate and looked out on the sea of people below, and across the road in Tiananmen Square and could instantly believe that 1.3 billion people call the PRC home.

After that we made our way into the Forbidden City and the crowds began to thin out, China is a poor country and admission wasn't cheap. It was quite an impressive complex of buildings, life as a Ming or Qing emperor would have been very posh. Unfortunately a couple of the larger buildings were being restore before the 2008 Olympics, and we were unable to go in. After we'd wandered around for a couple hours we exited to the north, went into a park whose name I can'e recall, climbed a hill and had some excellent views of The Forbidden City. By this time heading back to the hotel for some food and sleep was priority one.

After regrouping with a good night's sleep we decided to head straight back into the heart of Beijing, and check out the area around Tiananmen Square. The plan was to hit Mao's masoleum, the Great Hall of the People, Chinese History Museum, Monument to the People's Heroes, and the square itself. Mao's final resting place was the first stop, but Mao was closed that day... and the soldiers inside the compound were busy playing basketball. Next we tried to get into the Great Hall of the People... it was closed as well. This was probably the biggest disappointment of the whole trip, it's supposed to be quite a cool building for anyone with a sense of modern Chinese history. Next we decided to climb a gate at the south end of Tiananmen Square, and it gave some amazing views of the world's largest public square. Then we decided to amble across the square and check out the Chinese History Museum; only half of that was closed. However I did get to see was replicas of Bill Gates, Michael Jordan, David Beckham, and Hu Jintao among others. The Musuem of the Chinese Revolution is in the same building, and seemed to be quite interesting, but there was no English at all.

Despite a couple unfortunate closures these first two days in Beijing were good ones. They provided a nice contrast of old and new Beijing, and the old and new China. In more ways than one those two Chinas still sit astride each other, and are hurtling into the future together, for better or worse.