Shortly after this, our taxi dropped us off at the side of the Forbidden City. I bought a famous Beijing snack called 糖葫芦 (tanghulu) consisting of fruit on a stick covered in some sticky kind of toffee which felt like it voided the warranty on my teeth to eat. While eating this we walked to the main entrance of the forbidden city.
Forbidden City
When we arrived at the entrance to this key Beijing landmark, we collected audio guides and then entered the city. We spent roughly 4 hours walking around the forbidden city looking at many different buildings and courtyards. The city contained many artifacts such as pottery, jewelry, and ancient carvings. It was all quite interesting although a lot of information to take in and very tiring to walk around such a large area.
National Museum of China
After the Forbidden City, we caught a taxi from the area we exited from towards the National Museum of China. There was not anywhere convenient we could be dropped off, so we were dropped off in a side street of Chang’an Street where we proceeded to walk down Chang’an Street towards the museum. We passed through many security checkpoints along the footpath where we needed to show our IDs before proceeding. For context, this museum is located right beside Tiananmen Square. When we arrived, we saw another line that was for entering Tiananmen Square and said that we needed to book one day in advance, which we had not done. He did however have tickets for the museum, so we proceeded to that line, going through another few security checkpoints and x-ray machines. This journey to the museum had more security than the average airport check-in.
Inside the museum, we were able to look at many kinds of artifacts such as famous Chinese flags, ancient Chinese currencies, and ancient pottery. We also visited a section of the museum that introduced innovations in China. We were rushing to see parts of the museum as it was already getting later in the day. My favourite artifact was the first flag to be flown at the founding ceremony of the People’s Republic of China, marking the beginning of China as we know it today.
Tiananmen Square
After seeing most of what we wanted to see at the museum, we realized that we could exit the museum out the side which we could see gave us views of Tiananmen Square. After exiting, I noticed some people seemed to be able to access the square from this side courtyard of the museum, which at first, we thought meant they had a special booking as there were gates that opened and closed to allow people to cross the road to the square. We walked closer, and I asked the police officer standing there in Chinese if we could enter, and he said we could. This was good because it meant we could tick off the last item on the agenda for the day, setting foot in the famous square. We took some photos taking in the views of the different buildings surrounding the square. Angie told me a story about how when she was younger, she participated in the performance to form pictures from the formations of students on the square to celebrate the 60th anniversary of China. She also told me about how they would have to visit the square in the middle of the night for rehearsals. As we walked towards the exit of the square past Mao Zedong’s Memorial, we could see some soldiers marching.
After this, we returned to my hotel and Angie left to meet up with her grandma. At my hotel, I had some Kong Pao chicken delivered for dinner, before going to the gym.
