Forbidden city

The day started early, around 7am. I woke up a few times throughout the night, but never for long. I guess being up for like 20 something hours can cause that.

We went to a market in the morning. As the many avid readers of my blog know, I love love love markets. And, this time I had someone with me who knew the language (so much so that when buying fruit she shooed us away, knowing that our mere presence would make haggling for her harder) and so I allowed myself to be more adventurous! 

We started with a Jianbing, a chinese crepe like thing, I then got these chicken on sticks(so adventurous), David got warmed soy milk and we got a super long donut!  What a breakfast!!

We came back to the house to chill for a bit and then before I knew it, it was decided we were leaving. Farrah's mom wanted to make food for us and our breakfast simply was too big to be hungry for lunch, so instead we planned to come back for dinner.

We took a bus, and 2 subways to arrive at Tiannamin square. When we arrived, I was surprised to see that the square was cut in the middle by a several lane road.  My image of the square was more of a formalized "pedestrian" street, a courtyard of sorts.  But I was wrong!

We stopped for lunch(only I ate) and got a food court style chicken with vege(some type of green bean) and rice. we also saw some type of guards crossing.

We walked through the north south axis til we were about 2/3rds through.  Farrah says she hasnt been there since she was like 10, but she seemed to recall quite a lot of information.  Like about where and how business was conducted, and a bridge that we were standing on, 150 years ago would have been restricted to the emperor only. 

The buildings were grand(but we weren't allowed in or even near), and there were so so many people there, that I was happy to escape the crowds and the large buildings to hang a left.  We found internal courtyards(my favorite!!), little musems(one about deer), some shops amd finally the imperial garden.  I wish therr weren't so many people there, as it was hard to really see or concentrate, but it was beautiful.  There was a mix of pagoda style buildings and temples with these rock formations.  Ans the names of the buildings felt like they came out of a.dystopian novel; the temple of accumulated something or other, the palace of heavenly purity, or the study of cultivation and nature. Farrah said that in mandarin, the names of the buildings had a poetry to them, that simply doesnt translate.

We lefr the forbidden city, cross the street and was in Jingshan park. A not so terrible walk up greeted us with 360 views of the forbidden city, and the surrounding area of the city. We all(mostly me) needed to rest a bit before we made the climb up, but it wasn't bad at all and was super worth it. I even got to do a photo shoot(my favorite thing) of me in Empress style garb. For 25 yuan(about 5 or so dollars), I could not think of a better souvenir. We came down and accordian music greeted us. According to Farrah, older people who are retired, habe recently been picking up ayraid of different hobbies to occupy their time. Accordians are apparently one of those things.

We took a bus, 2 subways and bus back and arrived home to have dinner nearly ready. We ate garlic spinach, pork with a thing that tasted like asparagus(but actually a relative of chives or onions), chicken wings cooked in coke, a fish and homemade pancakes. As per usual, I ate too much, but it was mostly vegetables and we did do like 20k steps today.

After dinner I showered, and by 745 was struggling to keep my eyes open. I wasnt alone, we all made our way to bed by like 8pm. Aftrr of course I slathered every ounce of lotion I could find on my poor dry hands and legs!!