Day 2

Day 2 – Beijing, Olympic Park, Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square
Wow! What a great day. Yesterday when I said that Beijing felt like a lot of other big cities was totally wrong, it is absolutely amazing and huge. The density of the apartments and buildings is hard to wrap your mind around. We drove the Olympic Park and got to tour the Water Cube or as the kid on the bus said the “ice cube”. They did a great job with the venue and Chinese people are very proud of it. We were ready to see some ancient history so from there we went to the Forbidden City. It was completed in the early 1400’s and we got to see how the Chinese ruling class lived and it was amazing. The power that was displayed and the opulence was staggering. The city went on for miles and the detail of the architecture was spectacular.
The Chinese people have been very friendly and very interested in us. One of the ladies in the group looks a little like Izzy from Grays Anatomy. She had an entire group of people line up to take pictures of her and they kept saying ..”ahh greys anatomy”. When we went to TSquare we got to see a demonstrator throw flyers and how quickly he was hauled away. We were also drew a lot of interest as people wanted to take pictures of us.
When we got back to the hotel we had a 90 minute foot massage. It was somewhere between ecstasy and torture. I thought I would go back today, but I am on the line. Scott’s big buy yesterday was 3 Mao dictator watches. His arm moves up and down in dictatorship style. Too funny! Today the Great Wall! 2 more days until Piper!