On day 3,  we started off at Tiananmen Square.  As Lisa, our tour guide described the history of Tiananmen Square, all I could remember was the news shots from the 1989 student uprising.  It' funny how the images of one news event can come back to you sometimes.  This square is the entrance way to the Forbidden City. It is bounded by the Government Building, General Mao's Mausoleum, the National Museum, and the Forbidden City.  The square is frequented by tourists and is used by locals for flying kites. 

As a tourist it is somewhat like running a gauntlet to get through the square without being caught by someone trying to sell you postcards or even a chance to fly a kite. 

We entered the Forbidden City from the Tiananmen Square side.  The Forbidden City has 10,000 rooms to it and is surrounded by a moat.  A large part of the Forbidden City is under construction.  They are trying to renovate the place before the 2008 Olympics.   It was still impressive but all the construction does take away from some of the awe inspiring appearance of it.  The concubines were treated well here.  There were some three thousand concubines for one emperor not to mention his wife.  There are no trees in the Forbidden City because the emperor was afraid of assassins.  As if all the buildings were not enough places to hide. 

After the Forbidden City, we went to on a tour of the Hu Tongs.  These are quadrangle style house buildings with center courtyards.  Very common throughout Beijing and very old.  Follow the link for more history (http://www.chinavista.com/experience/hutong/hutong.html).  We actually got to talk to a family that lived in a hu tong and see what one was like.  We got an interesting story about cricket fighting which I will post in another blog.   

After lunch, the rest of the day was ours to wander around.  We went to several markets and just walked around town.  When the weather is good it is not a bad city to walk around in. You just have to make sure you have good walking shoes.  We had no problem finding nice restaurants to eat at. 

We met a local when we stopped to fill out postcards and he gave us a verbal tour of the area we were in then took us to his gallery and showed us several works of art.

On our fourth day, we went to Behai Park and several markets.  Behai Park has a wonderful community feel to it.  There were people teaching other people how to ball room dance, there were several groups of people who were singing and playing instruments, and there was even a group who were talking using sign language.  The group using sign language was located in the middle of the other groups who were playing music.  It was a really neat experience to see the local people just enjoying themselves and life. 

The gardens and temple at Benhai park were different than anything else we had seen and was really enjoyable to be at.  The only thing that I did not like about the park was the nickel and dimeing that occurred.  We had to pay three separate admissions to get to different parts of the park which just gave me flash backs of Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, England where we were also nickel and dimed for every little thing.

The market experience in Beijing is fun.  Prices are always negotiable in most cases.  They usually start with Hello! Insert product here? i.e. Hello! Chicken?  Hello, Snake? Hello, wallet?  It's a funny form when you here it but it get's the point across quickly. 

When we were finished with the hotels we decided to grab a taxi and go back to the hotel.  We found an English speaking taxi driver who proceeded to try and get us to pay almost five and half times the price for a taxi.  We declined and got out of the taxi. We ended up walking home in the rain with a brief stop in a pedestrian district where we had some dinner. 

The next morning we got up and went to the airport to go to Xian.