Forbidden City

September 16th--Today we woke up to the worst smog yet since we've been here. If I didn't know any better, I would just say that it was very foggy and potentially going to rain. Nope, it's just a whole lot of smog. It certainly didn't change our plans for going to the Forbidden City though. We headed out (smog and all) to Forbidden City. We arrived about 11:00 a.m. and were immediately greeted with one of the biggest scam known around that area. There was an Asian woman who spoke great English posing as an art college student (actually from New York). She wanted us to follow her to look at her pictures. Luckily, we had read about this scam beforehand and knew that she wanted us to come buy her overly priced artwork. We nicely said no thank you and continued through to the Gate of Heavenly Peace (and Mao's huge picture). They are setting up for the 60th anniversary celebration and it looks like it will be quite an event. At this point in our day (the beginning), Austin was already asking to be held. I couldn't understand why he was doing this until he explained to me that as long as I was holding him, then no one would be touching him or holding him. I thought that was very insightful of a 3 year old and he was already being proactive to avoid the "paparazzi". Anyway, we walked through the Gate of Heavenly Peace and one more gate before getting to the actual entrance to the Palace area where we had to have a ticket to continue on any further. The Forbidden City, named because it was off limits to commoners for 500 years, housed two dynasties of emperors, the Ming and Qing. The Forbidden City is huge!! (understatement!) It is over 10 million square feet, 800 buildings and 9000 rooms. Luckily, only about half is open to visitors. Upon entering the Meridian Gate (the gate formerly restricted to emperors), we ventured off the beaten path to escape the throng of other tourists. We found a large green area that included the Golden Stream and some smaller temples (again, without all the crowds). After spending some time in this area, we headed back down the main north-south axis into the Three Great Halls. The large halls, the heart of the Forbidden City, were mainly used for ceremonial purposes. We made our way through this area and found a restaurant to grab a quick lunch. We then headed into the former residential area which now serves as a treasury, displaying artifacts from the dynasties. We finally made our way to the north side of the Forbidden City and exited the North Gate. From the North Gate, we caught a taxi to take us to the North side of Tian'men Square. We knew we didn't want to come back to this area on the weekend so we decided to take full advantage of walking through this square in the middle of the week. We casually walked the length of the square which totals 9 football fields. Upon getting to the end, we were tired from a long day of walking and wanted to find a spot to relax for a little bit. We decided to go back and try the Lao She Teahouse. It was open this time and we were nicely greeted. We got a table up in the balcony area where we got a great view of the live music and the area all to ourselves. We read over the long list of tea choices and even though they were in English, we still didn't know what they were. I finally decided on Big Buddha Longjing not because I knew what it was, but because it was on the top of the menu of Green Teas. We also order a few snacks to sample. The tea making process was very unique...definitely different than the 'pour hot water into a cup with a tea bag' process. The waiter first rinsed our glasses out with hot water, then put the tea leaves in the glass and then poured the hot water in. It took me a while to be able to drink my tea because it was so hot, but once I did it wasn't bad at all. I could have used a little bit of sugar, but thought that was probably really inappropriate. Anyway, the atmosphere and experience was well worth the trip. After the teahouse, we headed back to the apartment. Mike and Austin played on the playground while Abby did her school work. She actually drew a great picture of a temple from the Forbidden City as her history part. By the time, Abby finished up, it was dinner time. We decided to have pizza delivered and we all ate it like we hadn't eaten in days. It was a nice change from Chinese food. We are all heading to bed early because we have an early tour to the Great Wall tomorrow morning.