We woke up around 8 Am so we had a really good sleep.

After breakfast which had this really good chicken and peanuts dish we made our way to the Subway and Tiananmen East station. We got in the huge lines and went thought security and than through Tiananmen Gate looking at Mao’s picture as we passed under it.

It was a long long walk just to get to the ticket windows outside the Forbidden City and than we got in the wrong line and had to go wait again in a different line and show our passports and than we bought tickets. We had to go to another spot to get a gps portable English tour audio guide. As we walked around whenever we hit a gps location it would provide historical information. It was very cool. If you stepped back from a spot and than forward it would start again.

Finally we entered The Forbidden City. The scale is massive and overawing just like the Emperor’s wanted it to be. The buildings at the beginning are all raised very high with tons of stairs to climb. We climbed past the Emperors way a marble path set in the middle that only the Emperor could walk on. There was a lot of pushing and shoving to see the throne room. Some guy speaking French tried to push me out of the way to get his wife in so I said “Merde” twice quite loudly and he looked very surprised and stopped pushing me. Finally I was at the side window to see the throne room. It was very hard to see as it was very far away but cool nonetheless.

There was more pushing but way more friendly at the Bridal room (no not that kind of friendly) for the Emperor and Empress. They would stay there three days and nights after the wedding.

There were so many beautiful buildings with so many wonderful names. The Hall of Supreme Harmony, The Hall of Heavenly Purity, The Hall of Mental Cultivation etc.

We made our way off to the right and got tickets for the Clock and Watch museum which was fascinating with many types of European Clocks. Everything from British, French, Swiss, American and Chinese. Most were huge but some were massive. There was one water clock that size of a double tall garage for a car.

When we finished with the clocks we wandered to the Imperial gardens. WOW!! They are so beautiful with 300 to 400 old trees, huge shaped rocks and little building and screens dotted all over the huge area. We were entranced for quite awhile.

We finally returned our audio guides and left through the North Gate. We went from quiet contemplation in the Imperial Gardens to a cacophony of noise and smoke. What a difference. We quickly figured out how to cross under the street and went into Jingshan park. We had to pay 2 Yuan each to get in. We walked in the quiet park and out its west gate, across the street and about 400 meters to Bei Hai Park and paid 40 Yuan each to enter that park. We have no understanding of how the process of prices is arrived at but it’s interesting nevertheless,

Bei Hai Park was beautiful. You could rent boats and take a ferry. We took the ferry and wandered off to find the Nine Dragon screen. I cannot describe how beautiful the massive screen/wall was. Nine Dragons on a spectacular jade background. I sat on the rocks and just stared at it awhile. Hubby walked back and forth looking at it and then we did the same for the back.

We walked to where I could smell food where they had hot corn on the cob, drinks etc. I asked for cha (tea) and the proprietor showed us to outside seating under trees behind the stand and we waited while he organized a huge hot water container and a beautiful bodum like tea pot and some glasses. The hot tea was just what I wanted and while I drank we watched people dressing up in Emperor and Empress Costumes to have pictures taken also a video of them floating over the lake on the back of a Phoenix which they showed on a TV screen we could see from where we were sitting.

Once refreshed we wandered farther along the lake and outside where again the noise seemed extreme because we had been somewhere so quiet. We again went under the street to another lakeside (Hou Hai) and walked past fishermen and not fishing signs until we fund an interesting restaurant advertising Italian Pizza. Hmm we thought how different will this be. We ordered only a slice each but luckily the lady made a whole pizza because we kept asking for more slices. So good with a nice thin crunchy crust and delicious toppings.

We had goggled the nearest subway stop but the one that came up wasn’t on our subway map. We decided to try it anyway and the entire line is new. It was a very nice bright new station. The last stop on this line on had us in tears with laughter as it didn't announce that this was the terminus station or mind the gap or anything like that it simply said "Get Out" over the loudspeaker. We made it to our home subway stop and once we were in our room we organized things for tomorrows big train trip including a taxi at 5:30 AM. Shenhaiguan tomorrow but sleep now. Goodnight.