We were tired of course so we woke up later than other days I would say. Especially because we didn't have any official tours planned and were just going to pack up then hit Beijing's sightseeing spots before we flew back to Hong Kong. We got downstairs with maybe 15 minutes left for the included breakfast buffet and got all our food and drinks quickly as they started taking everything away even before the time was officially over. We ate and then went over and talked to the concierge about our options for the day. Instead of taking a taxi we could take a subway from Agricultural Exhibition Center to Guomao and then switch from the number 10 line to the number 1 line where we could get to Tianenmen Square East stop and see Tianenmen Square and the Forbidden Palace. This was going to cost us 2 Chinese Yuan rather than probably 50 yuan for a taxi. We also found out we could take the airport express on a change from the number 10 line only 2 stops away. This would cost us 2 yuan each to get to the airport express and then 25 yuan each to get to terminal 2 of the airport and would take us only about half an hour or so. The subway ride to Tianenmen Square was also a half an hour or less. So we checked out of the room and brought our suitcase and heavy bags to the concierge who held on to them for us until we would return to the head to the airport then headed to the subway.
The Agricultural Exhibition Center was maybe 5 minutes away from the hotel. Less if you walk fast. The subway system has you check all your bags for security at an xray machine before entering the subway system. After that we bought our 2 tickets and headed down to the subway itself. Everything is in English enough that you can get around without much issue. There are signs and electronic displays that have English as well as Chinese to explain where the train is, which way it is going and what the upcoming stops are. I am not sure if it was this way prior to the 2008 Olympics or if they added all the English to accommodate the foreign travelers that arrived to Beijing for the Olympics. I have to ask of some of the locals I think to find out. Still this made it easy for us to get on and change to the correct train and get where we were going. We didn't even have to exit and pay for a second ticket to get through. The system works with a ticket you swipe at entry and put into a slot at exit. If you have more value on it then it gives it back otherwise it will just take it from you and you get to exit. The trains were very crowded but not so much that it was uncomfortable. Still, we were then only non-Chinese looking people on the train. Well, I was anyway and that meant a lot of uncomfortable stares from people who were probably wondering what we were doing on their train system. On thing I've noticed on several trips to Asia is the tendency of people to wear shirts with incorrect English sayings or poorly spelled words or most often poorly constructed phrases that often times are very humorous to look at. I saw several such shirts on this train ride to Tianenmen Square East. It made me think about something and laugh a little bit. So many Asians wear English that they have no idea what it means on their shirts. But so many Americans get tattoos of Chinese characters and they are not necessarily certain that the character is what the tattoo artist told them it was. I think the latter is worse. You might look like a moron to someone for a short time you wear the shirt but much worse when you have something tattooed on you forever. I admit I cannot ready more than 2 Chinese characters and some are only situationally, like the characters used for an exit which I will only remember when I see the exit so I wouldn't know if that tattoo is wrong but there are people who would know.
We arrived at Tianenmen Square east and you could instantly see the city center once you got upstairs from the subway. There is a big roadway doing a cross intersection right where we arrived. The road is about 5 lanes wide in each direction. Because of this access to the Square is from the underground. To get through the underground walkway we again had to check through some form of security which it appeared they were letting in certain numbers of people at a time. We did the Chinese thing and pushed and cut so we got through by melding in with a tour then leaping ahead of them so we didn't end up waiting as long as we could have to get into the area. Once inside we pretty much started walking in under the gates with the picture of Mao after taking many pictures (by the end of the day I had 413 I think). Walking inward there are several courtyards which I believe make up part of the Forbidden Palace but these areas are free. We kept on walking further in to see how far we could go for free. Along the way we saw some police taking a man into a van and an old woman yelling at and swatting at the police officers who were taking the man away. He was Chinese. I have no idea what he did or why he was being taken away or why the woman was yelling and attacking the police officers. There was a crowd that was forming to watch the spectacle but I thought perhaps it would be best to move on. I am not comfortable with the idea of them deciding they may want to bring more people to jail than who they already picked up. So we just kept on walking and continued further into the complex. Eventually we did hit a location that was no longer free and we found that there was a ticket booth to enter the Palace Museum. Tickets were 60 yuan each I think and once you were inside you could buy an audio guide companion for 40 yuan. By the way the yuan may be referred to as CNY or RMB which is a Chinese name for the currency as well. We got Daniela an audio guide en espanol and I went without. The guide was set up to be based on GPS and would start explaining things as you progressed to different areas. I was not privy to what was said. Daniela said the speaker was fast and the information was more about the specific points of architecture than anything historical like she was hoping. So I really didn't get a lot of the information provided in the audio guide translated to me. But there were many sign boards in English that explained things well enough that I was able to get a good idea of the buildings and what was going on.
I want to say that the various sections of the Forbidden Palace do look sort of similar but the place is very massive. I believe the largest royal grounds I have even been on. I remember Versailles was very large too but I don't think it was anywhere near as large as this place was. I suppose it would have been nice to have some more variance in the architecture but I understand why it was the way it was. One thing I found really funny was the fact that I had about a dozen different Chinese people, teens mostly, or early 20s, ask to take their picture with me. I of course agreed and now I am probably in the photo albums of a lot of different Chinese people. As we were continuing on we ended up running into Nathan and Anna the American and Swede from our tour the day before. Considering how massive the place is it was ironic we could remotely find each other in the place. It is a strange thing how we could choose to be in the same place at the same time among so many people we didn't know. So we chatted for a couple minutes then moved on. By the time we made it through the gardens at the other end it was about 3 and a half hours later. This really put us at a point where we weren't going to be able to do much else but get back to the hotel and pick up our stuff to continue on to the airport. But unfortunately we were on the wrong side of the gigantic Forbidden City's grounds and would have to find a way back to the subway station. I am sure it is possible to walk around the grounds and the moat to get there but it would be a significant distance and take quite a while to do so. There was a sign that said you could take a number 5 bus back to the subway and it was 500 meters to the west but it was not obvious where to go and we couldn't find any reference to a number 5 bus nor whether it was on the same side of the street or if we had to go underground to get to the other side of the street and find it there. It is basically confusing. There are a ton of guys there waiting for westerners to come out of the gate and offer them rickshaw rides around the grounds to the other side for inflated amounts of money. They are all, like all the other Chinese very aggressive and very insistent and follow you around and grab you when you walk away. I got to the point where I was yelling no at them to get them away from me. It felt so rude but it actually worked and they stopped following us. We wandered a bit and Daniela heard a Chinese guy speaking in English to an Indian person and she started to ask him what we do. Turns out his western name was Luis and he is a tour guide that does the grounds and Tianenmen Square and all of that and he had just finished and was heading back to the subway also. So offered to lead us there. We took a number 110 bus which got us to a subway station on the number 1 line which meant just reversing our directions to get back to the hotel. Luis was very nice and knew a little Spanish as well so Daniela and he talked a bit and exchanged business cards for professional purposes. He rode the train to a stop beyond us where we got off and Guomao. We then changed back to the number 10 line and on to Agricultural Exhibition Center and to the hotel where we stopped very briefly and got our stuff and then turned right back around to the subway station.
We got tickets for the subway and rode 2 stops in the opposite direction we had taken before. The name is too huge to write here out of memory. I am sure I have a map that gives its name. We then bought tickets for the Airport Express to terminal number 2 which is the second stop on the express. It was amazing how long of a ride difference there is from terminal 2 to terminal 3. I expected 5 minutes but I think the train loops around the entire airport and took probably 15 more minutes. We got into the terminal and found our way to the check in desk but they had not started for our flight yet so we had to wait about 20 minutes to start check in. We managed to be first in line for that which was nice and it was quick too. We then went though immigration and security which also both were quick. I again expected more difficulty than we got. I did have some Hong Kong money in my backpack and that apparently set them off for issues with the xray machine, so they took my backpack and searched it and found the $5 piece and gave it to me along with my backpack but they were polite and it was not difficult. From there we found out terminal 3 is fairly small. We hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was past 6pm by this point and we were both starving so we ate at a restaurant near the entrance to the terminal after walking around and seeing how small the terminal was. I had a New Zealand beef filet and Daniela had New Zealand lamb chops. It was expensive but the food was good. Both had a black peppercorn sauce on them which I really liked but Daniela thought was too peppery. I had 2 beers and she had 2 orange juices along with a shared bottle of Evian water. When were done we did some quick gift shopping just as the stores all closed. Our flight was supposed to depart at 8:25 but it was delayed from arrival by traffic issues departing at Hong Kong and then a huge thunderstorm came through as we were shopping and that delayed it landing even longer so that it had to switch gates. We boarded over an hour late and then we didn't depart for another hour after that which meant 2 hours late. The flight is 3 hours. We were supposed to arrive to Hong Kong around midnight and then would have to get to the hotel so I have figured 1am but when all was said and done we landed late in the 2am hour and immigration and baggage claim were quick. We had to wait a few minutes for cab as there seemed to be some sort of flow control keeping the taxis from entering the airport that eventually they all skipped around. The driver got us to the hotel directly. There was really no traffic. We checked in and got to the room with little issue. I think it was about 3:20 when we got there. After getting settled in it was significantly past 3:30 before I went to bed (yes, I had to teach the next day).
The images from China day 3 are located here.
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