Day 1.
We arrived (meaning me and my dad) at the Beijing airport at 8:00 pm. From the air, the Beijing area doesn't look like much. First there are the mountains, brown and tan, then the little villages with blue and red roofs. Then there are blocks of tall apartment buildings and finally the airport. I think the airport is quite ugly, like an alligator hide but my dad said it was a technological marvel.
Beijing at that time was unbearably hot. 95 degrees in fact. I tried to imagine how that could even work, as Beijing is about as far north as New York City. My grandparents on my dad's side owned two apartments in a neighborhood called Wangjing Hua Yuan (literally Wangjing flower garden). The two apartments combined were probably a little over five hundred feet square but considering the fact that they are located in an excellent neighborhood in one of the largest cities in the world, they were pretty valuable (1 million RMB).
My grandfather had gone out and bought lamb before we arrived and had made a nice lamb soup for dinner. There was a large market near Wangjing Hua Yuan which would have given any health inspector a heart attack. However, I enjoyed multiple delicious cheap meals there with no adverse side effects.
Day 2.
My dad, my grandparents, and I went to Tiananmen Square. When we went there, it wasn't very crowded but there were still a ton of people. The place was full of flowers and flags and monuments. It was hemmed in by ancient structures and gigantic 1950's buildings. At the south border was the Qianmen complex (which was used in the dynastic days to trap marauding barbarians), at the east and west were huge monolithic complexes which were unremarkable except for their sheer size, and at the north was the one and only Tiananmen. My grandmother was insistent upon going up on Tiananmen itself; she remembered very clearly the day when Mao Zedong stood up there and gave his victory speech and she was repeating the opening line.
When we got up onto the gate, the view was breathtaking. The Square was laid out in front of us, as neat and orderly as could be. I remember thinking that there was no place in Washington DC, or maybe the entire US, that could compare. I also remember thinking that this would be a great place for President Snow (of the Hunger Games) to give a speech. The security was in the extreme levels. Plainclothes policemen were everywhere, except they didn't bother to pretend to act normal. It's almost as if they were saying, "Look how normal we are dressing. Any other tourist or sightseer could be another policeman."
We also went to Zhongshan Park, which was a small, and un-noteworthy park, filled with ancient trees and old pagodas.
We arrived (meaning me and my dad) at the Beijing airport at 8:00 pm. From the air, the Beijing area doesn't look like much. First there are the mountains, brown and tan, then the little villages with blue and red roofs. Then there are blocks of tall apartment buildings and finally the airport. I think the airport is quite ugly, like an alligator hide but my dad said it was a technological marvel.
Beijing at that time was unbearably hot. 95 degrees in fact. I tried to imagine how that could even work, as Beijing is about as far north as New York City. My grandparents on my dad's side owned two apartments in a neighborhood called Wangjing Hua Yuan (literally Wangjing flower garden). The two apartments combined were probably a little over five hundred feet square but considering the fact that they are located in an excellent neighborhood in one of the largest cities in the world, they were pretty valuable (1 million RMB).
My grandfather had gone out and bought lamb before we arrived and had made a nice lamb soup for dinner. There was a large market near Wangjing Hua Yuan which would have given any health inspector a heart attack. However, I enjoyed multiple delicious cheap meals there with no adverse side effects.
Day 2.
My dad, my grandparents, and I went to Tiananmen Square. When we went there, it wasn't very crowded but there were still a ton of people. The place was full of flowers and flags and monuments. It was hemmed in by ancient structures and gigantic 1950's buildings. At the south border was the Qianmen complex (which was used in the dynastic days to trap marauding barbarians), at the east and west were huge monolithic complexes which were unremarkable except for their sheer size, and at the north was the one and only Tiananmen. My grandmother was insistent upon going up on Tiananmen itself; she remembered very clearly the day when Mao Zedong stood up there and gave his victory speech and she was repeating the opening line.
When we got up onto the gate, the view was breathtaking. The Square was laid out in front of us, as neat and orderly as could be. I remember thinking that there was no place in Washington DC, or maybe the entire US, that could compare. I also remember thinking that this would be a great place for President Snow (of the Hunger Games) to give a speech. The security was in the extreme levels. Plainclothes policemen were everywhere, except they didn't bother to pretend to act normal. It's almost as if they were saying, "Look how normal we are dressing. Any other tourist or sightseer could be another policeman."
We also went to Zhongshan Park, which was a small, and un-noteworthy park, filled with ancient trees and old pagodas.
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