Our guide, Helen, met us on the platform and helped us unload the luggage and get it to the van. We dropped our luggage off at the hotel, had breakfast, checked in and showered. Then it was off to the races – first Mao's mausoleum, Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, lunch and finally a tea ceremony before heading back to the hotel for a rest.
Mao's mausoleum was pretty much just how Mao would have wanted you to see him. We had to wait in a LONG line 4 people wide and wind our way around the Tiananmen square and the mausoleum building. There was lots of pushing and shoving (from the Chinese tourist in line around us) and lack of personal space. Once we were near the building we had a security check and a 'ID' check, but no one checked our ID's. Then we had to be quiet as we walked through the hall. You could buy flowers to put in the hall for ¥3, which we opted not to do. The hall itself was built and opened to the public 1 year to the day that Mao died. When Mao died in 1976 they quickly embalmed him to preserve his body but they didn't know what they were doing and used too much embalming stuff so his body puffed up like a balloon, so they also made a wax replica of him and you never know which body you see in the mausoleum when you go. I'm pretty sure we saw a wax replica of Mao. This whole experience took about an hour.
From here we walked through Tiananmen Square to get to the Forbidden City, which is not forbidden any more so they changed the name to the Palace Museum, but everyone still calls it the Forbidden City. This place is huge! Its 950m long, that's about 10 football fields!! And we walked the whole length of the place. The first half of the city is just for 'country business,' or for the emperor to run the country. The second half was living quarters. In the living quarters were the emperor, the empress and 3,000 concubines as well as servants and eunuchs. No one else was allowed in the City except for these people, and they were not allowed out of the city. There are 9,999 rooms in this palace, as well as a garden and many wide-open courts for the emperor to do meet and greets with his generals. The whole city is surrounded by a huge moat too. It took 14 years to build this palace and was home to 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The last emperor was Qing Puyi and was forced out in 1912.
After seeing these major sites we were tired and hungry so we had lunch and then went to a tea ceremony to finish of the day. Here we got to taste 4 kinds of tea, oolong, jasmine, puer and lychee black tea. Each tea has different health benefits as well as different tastes. When drinking tea at home here in China people use small tea cups to taste the tea, but may have many small cups while sitting around and chatting about your day. Most Chinese people don't go to bars as we know but to tea houses to sit and sip tea and socialize.
After the tea ceremony we went back to the hotel to have a rest, nap, check email, update the blog, and figure out dinner as we are on our own tonight!
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