New Year's Day

  As it were, we only had two full days, and frigid nights, in Beijing. The first, New Year's Eve, has already been described in great detail where we achieved the biggest goal we had on our itinerary: The Great Wall. So the next day was icing on the cake, where we made the best of what was left, as far as the city had to offer. That is, what we knew the city had to offer. It can confidently be said that four days, and that's being generous, is not enough to become familiar with the sights or sounds of a place, much less explore them to their core, but such is the crux of traveling.

  So after traversing the city the previous night to the cracking of fireworks and the promise of Belgian beer, we had intended to make our way to the Forbidden City.

  Unfortunately, this was perhaps our only disappointment of the day. Knowing we would wake up and peel back the thick white covers only to have to reluctantly take the next step, which involved bare feet and a frozen floor, it was not a difficult choice to deem sleeping for another couple of hours invaluable. As a result, our two-person party made it to Tiananmen Square in plenty of time to see hordes of people, mostly native, celebrating, presumably making a once a year trip to the revered location to look upon a gigantic picture of one of their most beloved leaders. As others did, so did we.

Mao's picture

  Once we had taken pictures and this experience in we made our way past Mao, easier said than done in both life and death, through one of two gigantic hallways, at each end capped by menacing metal doors that could resist even the most powerful of unwanted visitors. As what looked like an aesthetic plea to cover their threatening mass, each door had rows of ornaments upon them, shaped like a bell that was attached by it's rim, and we made sure to rub them as we passed, hopefully capturing some sort of Chinese good luck for ourselves.

  When we reached the other side, there was only a vast stone courtyard between us and The Forbidden City, complete with basketball hoops, a soccer field, and more vendors than I'd care to be approached by. Not to our complete surprise, given that it was a day when no business is expected to keep normal hours, we found the crowds we had for so long been following instead moving in the opposite direction, coming at us in a constant stream, eyes looking ahead, accepting the fact that bodily contact was a given. The Forbidden City was, for us, forbidden.

The Forbidden City

**More pictures at Tiananmen Square