China Adventure Day 3

Today we started our day (again) at 2:30 am. We are such a mess that we can’t sleep late. We’re trying some melatonin today, so hopefully we’ll be in better shape.
 
We started out the day with breakfast at our hotel. We really love these little donut hole-looking things that have some sort of a purple center. They’re amazing! After breakfast, we met the rest of our group and guide and drove to Tienanmen Square.  It was amazing! We saw the square where all of the protests happened, the government building, the national museum, and Chairman Mao’s memorial (you can even go in and see his preserved body, which we did NOT do).
 
After walking around Tianamen Square, we walked to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was so, so beautiful. This was the place that the emperor lived and conducted business. There are over 900 buildings, and they are all beautiful.  One of the buildings is the oldest surviving wooden structures in the world. We saw the emperor’s many throne rooms, his living quarters, and his gardens. There were SO many people everywhere. I’ve never seen anything so crowded. Walking out of the Forbidden City to our van was quite an experience. I feel like we really got a feel for the real Beijing.
 
We drove in a lot of crazy traffic to a slightly (or more than slightly) sketchy lunch place. Dan and I pretty much only ate the rice here. After lunch, we visited the Summer Palace, which is where the Emperor and his family would go to relax. There were many structures and bridges surrounding a huge lake with people out on boats. It was pretty, but we were all pretty tired by that point. After the summer palace, we ate a Peking duck dinner at a nice restaurant near our hotel. The food was great!
 
Tomorrow, we’ll fly out early to Guiyang, the city that Selah is from. Beijing has been great, but we’re excited to move on to the next leg of our adventure in China. And we cannot wait for Monday, when we finally meet Selah!