Aug. 11, 2008
Hello Friends! As mentioned in our previous blog, we had a pretty busy day planned for Monday, August 11th, as we did!
We accidentally started our morning at 2:00 am. Accidentally you ask???
Well the night before we were pretty exhausted from the traveling. I believe we fell asleep around 9:30 pm, making it a early night for the two of us. 2:00 am came around and my internal clock being COMPLETELY off, I felt as though it was 9:00 am and started to get ready for our big day. I hopped in the shower, got dressed and sat down at the computer to check my email and finish the first entry to our blog. Once I logged on to the computer, I realized that it was 2:00 am and not 9:00 am. Luckily, Matt never got out of bed, but we did have a good laugh when I realized the actual time. You have to love the jet lag!
We "really" started our morning about 7:00, where we headed to the hotel restaurant, "Days Cafe", for breakfast. The restaurant had an assortment of food from eggs, pastries, bacon, fruit, french toast, cereal, yogurt, fried rice, fried noodles and din sum. We had a lot planned for the day, so we decided to pile the food on our plates and devour.
Once we finished breakfast, we headed to the Forbidden City, which is also known as the Imperical Palace. The Forbidden City covers approximately 1,000,000 square meters of Beijing. For those of you are not familiar with the history behind the historical location, it was considered the ritual center for the Ming and the Qing dynasties (1368-1911). If you're really interested, I'm sure you can find the full details on wikipedia!
It took Matt and I about four hours to explore the ancient city. We began by looking at each emperors throne and moved on to the ancient artifacts of the time period. Matt really showed his obsession with math when he saw a number of tools for measurement and astrology. He acted like a kid in a candy store. We also found the clothing and the weapons to be a very interesting point of the tour. The items just seemed to be very advanced for the time period.
As we walked through the city, other tourist lined the halls, taking pictures with their friends and family. People from all over the world were so friendly and excited to share this experience. Everyone was willing to take pictures for each other and capture this exciting moment. Not only did we take pictures for others, but we were asked to be in a few pictures with the locals. We felt as though we became celebrities overnight. Every time it happened, we couldn't help but smile, laugh and take a picture with our new friends. It was nice that the Chinese citizens welcomed Americans into their culture so quickly.
We finally made our way out of the Forbidden City and crossed the road to Tiananmen Square. This historical landmark surrounds many important venues in Beijing. However, this time it seemed to be one of the central mark for the Olympics. Many of the television stations at the start of the Olympics, stationed their newscast from this location. Not only that, but it holds thousands of beautiful flowers that create large illustrations of the Olympics Games. We walked around the park taking pictures of each piece. Once we made it through the square we decided to make our way back to the hotel for a well needed nap! The walking and heat really make you tired.
Once we woke up for our nap, we headed to a Chinese-American restruant about a block away from our hotel. I ordered fried-rice with a Chinese beer. I also had a need for something sweet, so I ordered the chinese fruit pancakes. It was all pretty good. Matt ordered some beef and wild mushroom dish that was served over and open flame and got hotter as the meal went on.
Once we finsihed dinner we walked down the street opposite of the Forbidden City. We ended up finding the Oriental Mall, which looked like a small version of New York City. We walked through each shop browsing for souvenirs to purchase in the future. Everyone tried to bargain with us, yet we still haven't bought a single item. We are hoping to puchase a few items today at the Olympic Green. We defintiely plan on heading back to the mall sometime this weekn to pick up a few goodies.
Well that about does it for our Monday adventure. Today we are planning to take our trial run to the Olympic Green. We will be hopping on the subway from our hotel to the Olympic venues, but that will be an adventure shared with you tomorrow!
Thanks again for reading!
STAY TUNED to our blog for future updates!
Wendy & Matt
