1st day in Beijing cont.

View of room as soon as you walk in.
Outside of the Forbidden city
Forbidden City

Well, we ventured outside this morning and went to the Forbidden City. It's very busy here. There are police everywhere. They have one policeman on every street corner. If you are walking in the street and the light is going to change, they start blowing their whistle, it about scares you to death. If you weren't walking fast then, you will be. The older chinese are very interested in us. They come right up to you and start staring at you and talking to you. Of course, all we do is smile and keep walking. We met three chinese natives that are from Mongolia. They wanted us to go to a tea ceremony with them so they could keep talking to us and practice their english. They were very sweet. They told us how to get to Tinnamen square. You can't just walk across the street (impossible), you have to walk underground. They were telling us a lot about Beijing. They wanted to know if there were a lot of chinese in america. We found that very interesting that they did not know that. They said it was very hard to get a visa to the US. They said it was easier to go to Canada or Australia. I asked them if that was because of our gov't or theirs. They said it was the chinese gov't. The one thing that really bothered us, was they really try and push their merchandise on you. It can get very annoying. You say no and they keep pushing. You hate to be rude, but it does get old. We came back to the hotel to use the bathroom. I know everyone is probably laughing right now, but unless you want to squat, you have to pay to use the western toilets. it was only a couple of blocks, so we came back. We will venture out again soon. Until next time.