Say nai lao!...(cheese)

Yesterday, our first full day in Beijing, we mastered (I'm being optimisitic here) the city subway system to Tiananmen Square. It was a great time to visit; it was relatively uncrowded, and apparently the workers have Mondays off—so we were unable to go inside some of the buildings. The subway ride was VERY crowded; on the way back we were packed in like sardines. There are also signs to ‘mind the gap’ in Chinese which I found an interesting take on the London phrase. Also, outside of the train stations, instead of parking lots for cars, there are hundreds of bikes, maybe even thousands (I apologize in advance for my poor estimation skills). We found our first Olympic gift shop… so exciting! The military/guards are very interesting as well, they walk in twos wherever they are patrolling, in unison. It is kind of a silly sight, though I’m not sure why. And even sillier… apparently over here, we are celebrity look-alikes (or something like that). As we were walking around the Square, myself and a couple of the others were asked to pose for pictures with the people. It was very interesting. I’m not sure what’s going to happen with those… like, how are they going to caption that one in the photo album? But it definitely did give us a good laugh.

A little background on Tiananmen Square: this is where, in 1919, Chinese university students protested the Versailles Treaty, which said that China should relinquish territories to Japan. It’s also the site of the 1989 democracy protests in which the government responded to unarmed citizens with tanks instead of tear gas and riot police. Surrounding the Square are the Mao Zedong Mausoleum (which we want to go back and see), two of the few remaining gates of the old wall of Beijing from the 15^th century, the Great Hall of the People (where parliament meets), and the currently renovated National Museum of China.

We had dinner at one of the dining halls on campus, where we have a dining card that can be recharged with money, and swiped for food and snacks. I am pretty sure that Traci and I had tripe (cow stomach). Oh yummy. Well, I did say I wanted to try new things… the dog stew will have to wait for another day.