Spring Break Beijing Trip - April 13 Walking...

We woke up early Monday morning and took the taxi to Tiananmen Square to start a few walking tours recommended in our Lonely Planet guide book.
The weather was still the same but it all cleared up around afternoon and stayed very pleasant throughout the week. The taxi dropped us off a block away from the square where it is prohibited to pick up or get dropped off a taxi. We will soon realize that walking this city is just brutal on your feet, the distances are vast!


The Gate of Heavenly Peace with the haze around it, we will return to this spot again. This is at the north end of Tiananmen Square:




We then walked all over the square. Hard to believe it has been 20 years already when the Chinese government decided that the students went far enough. Just being here was another one of those moments!

The Monument to the People's heroes:


This is outside the Chairman Memorial Hall, where Mao ZeDong's body is laid and the lines to see it were always too long. And it closed at 12 noon. We did not get to see it, oh well, no big deal.


Look at the form:-)

This is the Front Gate, at the southern end of the square:



We then continued on our walking tour. This is the Beijing Railway Museum, it used to be a train station and it was built by the Westerners when they were here early in the 20th and late in the 19th centuries:

Facing away to the Front Gate:

This is another famous restaurant chain, the Quanjde Roast Duck Restaurant. We will return here when it opened later on.


We then walked on Dongiaomin Xiang Street, formerly known as Legation St. due to the area's 19th century status as the diplomatic mission quarter.
You can see lawyers helping locals, and mostly people from the countryside who visit the capital, file petitions for all sorts of things, mostly asking for compensation for the government seizing their land to build something.

Beijing Police Museum, closed on Mondays, darn! It used to be the building for the First National City Bank of New York.

The Supreme Court building:


After walking past the former Yokohama Specie Bank and former French Legation buildings, we come at the gothic St. Michael's Church:


And a shot of a unique local transportation method:


We had lunch at the food court of the Oriental Plaza mall. Here is a unique local food shop where each seat gets their own heating pad to boil food in:


The tour gets us to the Wangfujing area where lots of business offices and shopping areas are. Here is the Wangfujing Bookstore. Darn McDonalds of course, proud to say we did not have McDonalds at all while here (but relented and had some great Pizza Hut pizza later in the week).





We then walked along the famous Wangfujing Snack Street where Kostas was fascinated with some of the items on display. I believe these were for show, I just hope they were not for sale to be eaten!









You could buy lots of knick knacks here, everything with Mao for a price. I looked at a card set featuring Sadam Hussein and the salesperson kept after me "Sadam..cheap..good price". No thanks:-)


Yao Ming is God here, he is everywhere!


St. Joseph's church:


We then continued our walk in the sunny heat...After seeing some ruins at the Imperial Wall Founation Ruins Park we walked along Donghuamen Dajie Street where we stood on the bridge thast straddles the Forbidden City in the background:


We then made the cardinal mistake to agree to go on a ride on one of those bicycles after being pushed by two local drivers. Needless to say, Dad was leery of them but relented because mom and Sophia's feet were killing them. After a memorable ride through areas like this:



we managed to get back to Tiananmen Square. Naturally, the local drivers tried to rip us off. We paid them a third of what they asked, which still turned out to be a heck of a lot more of what they quoted us (we found out the original quote was a "per minute" charge). Anyways, it was a good lesson to learn and something we won't forget. Then again, in every country you find such people who try to take advantage of tourists. Next time you see us, mentioning "Big Boss" will always bring back the memories of the ride we took through the streets of Beijing:-)

After eating at the duck restaurant mentioned above, we walked the opposing way of where Forbidden City was. We walked through this brand new development and then we had to turn back and walk again towards Tiananmen Square north to head to Forbidden City.


Back at the Gate of Heavenly Peace, sunny.



Walking towards the Forbidden City, Duan Gate:


The Meridian Gate, the entrance to the Forbidden City...By the time we got here it was about 4 pm and it closed at 5 pm. We decided to leave and return another day.


We then decided to visit Behai Park. We took a taxi, there was no way we would walk there! This area has a lot of bars and cafes.





When we got here the winds (with some dust) picked up heavily and we decided to seek refuge to this beautiful Vietnamese cafe:

We ended up staying for quite a while resting our legs! Taxi back to the hotel and we crashed very early since tomorrow we drive to the Great Wall. The driver will pick us up at 6 am!