Last day in Beijing...
Its been pretty rainy the past couple of days but today was a windy blue sky day, nice fresh autumn day and all the pollution was swept away.
Yesterday we visited Mao Zedong's body. Heaps of people lining up...really incredible to see them all queing to see him. He looked very waxy. A sea of umbrellas filled Tiannamen Sqaure yesterday. It will be nice to come back one day and see it without so much going on...or does that happen?
Then we visited the Forbidden City. Incredible place shrouded in all sorts of chinese history and myth. Its vast and tiring but well worth a visit. There were, of course, crowds of people there and can imagine the experience being more sublime without all the people but a must see in Beijing. In fact, in our wanderings we have come up with one heck of a tale told within these very forbidden walls. A tale the proves that love can overcome ALL! The tale of a young Eunach falling for one of the concubines ( yeah, bet you never thought that could happen!) and the story's crescendo is when they have to run from the guards and her bound feet burst out of their bindings and her feet are healed. We are going to get that girl from "Crouching tiger" to be in it but not sure about who we can get to play the young eunach...Jackie Chan?
After we wandered to the Temple of Heaven which is a gorgeous temple-like pagoda where the emperor used to go to pray for plentiful crops or something like that. It was a striking three tiered pagoda with all deep blue tiled rooves and painted with electric blue, deep green, red and gold leafing. Yum. It was in the centre of a lovely park. The emperor sure knew how to have big impressive and beautiful spaces around him.
This morning I sort of insisted that we find the Olympic Stadium and check it out. I don't know if you have seen any picture of it but it's an incredible structure, nicknamed the Bird's Nest, for very apparent reasons. It wasn't the easiest to find but we made on the bus and wandered as close as we could get to the construction area. The whole area sort of looks like Fraggle Rock with all the men in yellow helmets working deep down in the earth to erect these massive structures. I am glad we made the effort to go. Not only are they building that one but several others as well and it is very evident that they have spent a lot of time cleaning up the area and getting it ready for one heck of a presentation. But this steel nest is impressive. Definitely a sight to see...well I think it is.
We opted to walk everywhere today and now we are doing some quick email before we catch our night train to Xian (where the Terrecotta soldiers are). Hopefully we will be in Tibet in about a week. So we'll see how the planning all goes but its always fun moving to a new city.
c&m
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