Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City and Hutong Tour - Oh My! (Friday, April 11, 2014)

After a restless night of sleep in spite of being awake for nearly 48 hours, we prepared for the day, enjoyed an extravagant breakfast buffet and met our guide, Helen, in the lobby to visit a bank to exchange money for our excursions while in Beijing.

We returned to the hotel and met our driver and we were off to visit many of the local Beijing tourist locations.  Here's a photo of the outside of our hotel.

First, our driver let us out directly across the street from Tiananmen Square.  There were tons of people - none of which believe in forming lines to be able to see the area in an orderly fashion!  Almost instantly, we discovered that Ian and Aidan are celebrities in China.  People would approach us, want to touch their hair and take photographs with them.  Luckily, Helen is a registered guide in Beijing so she was able to get us through the security area very quickly.  Tiananmen Square is a very popular tourist location for the Chinese people because it is the final resting place for a former leader, Mao Ze Dong, and has several monuments and congressional buildings on the square.  No one mentioned the reason we as Americans know about Tiananmen Square - the 1989 pro-democracy protests and the hundreds of lives that were lost when martial law was imposed.

We entered the Forbidden City - once the home of the Chinese emperor for many centuries. It was elaborate and ornate and larger in life than I'd expected.  We'd seen the movie, The Last Emperor, which was filmed about one of the emperors and the entire film was made in the Forbidden City.

While in the Forbidden City, Helen left us standing in the middle of one area while she purchased our entry tickets. In just a moment, we were surrounded by about 30 people who wanted to take photos with Ian and Aidan.  They have their own paparazzi in China.  They draw a crowd wherever we go!  They were so excited to see our little white boys!

Helen took us to a local restaurant for lunch - fried pork and vegetable dumplings.  They were delicious!  The boys ate some noodles. We were also celebrities in this restaurant as Helen described to us that this was a local spot - we may be the only white people they've seen in a nearby restaurant in quite some time.  It was a tiny little place, but the staff was gracious and kind.

Then we visited the Hutong area of old Beijing - it's like any historic area in the US - think Old Salem with the horse drawn carriage rides replaced by rickshaws!  It was amazing to see a walking tour of a private home, a rickshaw tour of the community and a drum show.  The entire afternoon was a very educational experience for our family.

The private home was actually much more spacious than most.  Typically, a family will only have about 30 square meters for about 3 people - about 3 rooms and no private bathroom - they still had community bath houses.  They had birds that talked and greeted us in Chinese - hello, how are you?, have you eaten?

Then we went on a rickshaw tour of the streets of old Beijing.  To just ride through this area - wow - I have a new appreciation for America and what we have!

We finished up our Hutong tour with a drum ceremony at the drum tower.  It was once used in a similar way of telling time as a large city clock that chimes.  Only here, the drums are sounded to alert you of time.  And you had to climb the steepest steps I've ever seen!

Ian and Aidan completely enjoyed our guide Helen.  She's fantastic and the boys just loved her.

We walked about 6 blocks from our hotel to have dinner and visit a local mall.  Here's the inside of the Pizza Hut - very fancy compared to our Pizza Hut's in the US.

Then we browsed through the local mall - just to see how it compares to what we are accustomed to - to my surprise - they only have white Barbies with blonde hair and blue eyes!  Not an Asian Barbie in sight!

On Saturday, we will visit the Great Wall of China!