**Admin Note: The post from Day 1 is lost, lost, lost. I'll try to recreate it but it may take a couple of naptimes to finish. In the meantime, here is the second post in the series - basically I decided that since every day now is one month since (...) it was a good time to go back and fill in the blanks from our trip.**After breakfast on Saturday (Day 2 but first full day in Beijing) we went to the front desk to exchange some money. And we see our guide Sean...who is wearing that same crazy outfit from the day before! It's raining outside, so he borrows a couple of umbrellas for us and we head out for our first big day of touring: Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Summer Palace.
FORBIDDEN CITY
My trip was almost a really short one. We were crossing the street outside the Forbidden City - we were on a crosswalk and were following the guide. I'm not sure if it was the rain-slicked streets or the speed of the bus in the middle lane but as I stepped out into the street it seemed to be more and more clear that the bus was NOT stopping for us and I'd better scoot! I think I ran across the rest of the way. If I wasn't awake before, I was definitely awake then!
The Forbidden City has been undergoing a facelift of sorts to get it ready for the exposure during the Olympics. The work will take another couple of years to complete but with this level of detail you can see why it's not a rush job! Here's a close up view of one of many palace roofs. Every color here has a meaning: red for fire, blue for sky, green for water...I'll have to doublecheck the yellow/gold because I'm drawing a blank at the moment.
It turns out I may not have had a chance not to be such a nut about numbers. It's apparently in my blood. Sean explained that you can tell how important a palace was by counting the figures on the rooftops. Nine characters were reserved for the emperor only - since 10 is considered a heavenly number, nine is the highest possible rank. Of course, the emperor somehow managed to build half a room in this complex so he would be just half a room shy of a heavenly number. No ego there. Anyway, from there on out I found myself looking for patterns of 8s and 9s and saw them everywhere! 
There are a couple of stairways along the central axis of the Forbidden City that have these amazing marble carvings. This one was so large and heavy that they had to ice down roads to be able to slide it to the palace. It's hard to get a feel for the scale of it in photos, but the whole center of this walkway is carved marble. The intricacy is just incredible. 
Our exit from the Forbidden City was an interesting experience too. We noticed a man in a red shirt standing oddly near us as we were listening to Sean explain about the depth of the brick floor in the open area in front of the palace. I can't remember now for sure but it's on video - maybe a hundred bricks deep? Anyway, that large open expanse was designed to prevent potential assassins from making it all the way across without being spotted, and the depth was intended to prevent anyone from digging a tunnel up to the palace. This man - we oh-so-creatively dubbed him "red shirt" - was just standing there with us with a big smile on his face but didn't say anything. It was making us uncomfortable so we started walking...and he was right there with us. All the way out, no matter what speed we walked or if we stopped, he was there just a little bit ahead and would stop and look for us in the crowd. Suspicious, no? We finally lost him just outside - maybe because of the increased military & police presence, who knows. Maybe he just liked Sean's pink shirt. Then in the courtyard near the exit of the Forbidden City is where Ayi was asked for her photo with a Chinese man (dubbed Frederico by ShuShu) who looked sooo thrilled about it in the photo itself. She posted that one on her blog.
All this time I had no idea that the exit from the Forbidden City is where the famous portrait of Chairman Mao hangs. I was so wowed by the size of the highway in between us and Tiananmen Square that I almost missed it behind us. It was also a little disappointing to find that they had already covered most of the red wall with green scaffolding just a matter of days after the Closing Ceremonies.
So that concludes our tour of the Forbidden City. We only walked the central axis of the grounds and our schedule didn't allow for much wandering, but we got a good feel for the beauty and the history and the significance of some of the details. I'm sure this is a place you could spend a day wandering and find all sorts of interesting bits.
Next post: Tiananmen Square!
By the time we got across the square, I think the travel fatigue was starting to catch up with us a bit. We were ready to stop for lunch....and oh was that lunch something else! The menu was selected for us by our guide and was yummy. I can't remember now all that we had, but I think it was kung pao chicken, a fish dish, a veggie dish that was really tasty, a beef dish with an odd texture, soup and rice. It's hard to remember much about the food because that's the lunch where we had 2 girls come in to entertain us. It was a ridiculously small room, with barely enough space for the big table and the 4 of us. But the girls come in to sing and dance something traditional for us...which was nice, except for how uncomfortably close they were! And it was NOT any kind of traditional dance I've ever seen! When the dancer started shimmying her shoulders right towards my mom I think I almost choked on my tea. Not only was she shimmying, she was doing it in an awkward and ... well ... an ungraceful way. And when she dropped to the floor into a backbend right there? So help me I had to close my eyes because if I made eye contact with anyone I was going to bust out laughing BAD. I know, bad American tourists. But they were doing a nervous giggle and making eyes at each other so it was hard to take seriously! In retrospect, how glad am I that I didn't end up sitting there by the door?? That could have been me that had to be smiling politely at her instead of hiding behind my tea cup! Fortunately we behaved ourselves through the performance and made it through lunch without further incident. What makes it more interesting is when we talked to other families who were there, all they got was lunch - no show! 
