El Ciudad Prohibido

Doesn't it sound nice in Spanish?
("Sí" is the only proper answer here)

The day after the (_______) Wall, we decided to head to another one of Beijing's amazing sights - The Forbidden City. We decided to take a subway. The subway lines themselves are not too difficult to navigate, but buying ticket's was a bit of a challenge for us - as we butchered Chinese trying to make ourselves understood to the ticket booth lady, a young man whose name would turn out to be Zhang Hua (Hua being the first name and pronounced something like Hwaaaaaa) offered to help us. He was on his way to meet a friend and was only going to help us on the first leg of our journey, just until our transfer, but then decided to accompany us all the way to Tiananmen West stop. Hua had studied English, but had never had the opportunity to communicate with native English speakers so he was excited for the opportunity. He was a university student from a different area south of Beijing and was up in the city for the holiday week. Once we got to Tiananmen Square, he called his friend whom he'd planned on meeting and then told us he would be happy to accompany us through the Forbidden City which he'd never seen before, but had, of course, studied in history classes. He turned out to be a great guy to walk around with - he pointed out things we'd never have known but for his presence and he also took pics whenever Mom, Dad, and I wanted a picture together. It was nice - here was someone who wasn't an opportunist or the kind of person offering to be a tour guide for a price - he was just a nice guy who wanted to practice English for the morning. We had a great time and all had lunch together in the Forbidden city.

Here's a picture of Tiananmen Square:
Mao was gleaming in all of his communist glory as he welcomed us through the Gate of Heavenly Peace:Here is Zhang Hua with my folks just before we entered the Forbidden City:We thought we were buying tickets to get into the city, but we only were buying ones to go up onto the top of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, but this was okay, as I was able to get a good picture or two of Tiananmen Square (the significance of which, I'm told, is lost on many young Chinese students):Many of the buildings were being restored in preparation for the 2008 games so some of the scenery was marred by scaffolding, but here's an idea of what it looks like when you step beyond the bridges through the gates:

Now I'll just put up some pictures of the Forbidden City with little commentary (except where necessary) - it seems pointless to put "this is a sculpture of a dragon" just below a sculpture of a dragon.
Although, if any of you have a good caption for the following, I'd love to read it:



This is a sculpture of a dragon:(sorry)



A note about the Forbidden City: you don't really get a full sense of the maze of buildings and passageways that intricately wind about within these walls until you go up to this hilltop temple outside of the gates of the palace. I thought my wide-angle lens would capture it, but of course it didn't come close to capturing how it really looked standing there:


Once we climbed back down the hill, we started heading around the northeast corner of the Forbidden City so we could find a kite shop my guidebook mentioned. There were many cherry blossoms in full bloom - I like the juxtaposition of the corner of the city with cherry tree, don't you? ("Sí, Mateo."):We found the kite shop after a little bit of searching, it was a tiny, mom and pop type store. I bought kites for my nieces and nephews (and me):The next day, mom and I took a taxi to the Dirt Market (which mom frequently calls "The Dirt Farm" by mistake. I'd promised I wouldn't mention this fact, but then I started typing and couldn't resist - sorry mom, but you know it made Becky chuckle.) The dirt market is a place for cut-throat bargaining. Most of the trinkets sold here were probably made in factories in the last five years where they were antiqued so they looked about a hundred years old. But this is part of the charm - if I'd had an extra suitcase, I would have filled it with trinkets from this fascinating market - tons of Cultural Revolution-era prizes, small chess sets made to look like they came from the Ming Dynasty (or some other -ing Dynasty), carpets, pots, figurines, watches, glasses, etc. I snapped this picture right as we got to the market, not knowing a man was walking right toward the center of the picture. But it couldn't have been more perfect - he looks exactly how I felt after milling my way past hawkers down the endless rows of merchandise:
Here are the wares available for purchase:
Here I am reading some of my favorite quotes of Chairman Mao:



I know the things I purchased were probably worth less than what I paid for them, but I don't mind. I bargained and got things for much cheaper than I would have paid for them in the States.

Up next, The Summer Palace.