China Day Five -- The Day Where We Walked, and Walked, and Walked, and Walked, and Walked

Chairman Mao's giant portrait at the entrance to the Forbidden City

Who came all the way to China and then got yelled at by the police on Tiannanmen Square?  Oh yeah -- it was us!  Score another victory for the Blau family plans to have an adventure in China!  Today we decided to wake up super early to head to Tiannanmen Square and see the army raise the Chinese flag.  It wasn't all that difficult to get up early because our bodies are still struggling to get used to the time change.  The flag raises at 6:44 in the morning.  We headed over to the square early.  It is only a ten minute walk from our hotel, so we didn't have to leave too super early.  We cut through the nice park next to our hotel.  The front gate to the park was open, but the back gate was still locked.  We sat there and looked at it for a second and then decided that the best thing to do was to jump the fence.  Holy Cow!  What sort of situations can our family get into each day?  It wasn't a big deal.  A park worker saw us jumping over and tried to rush over to open the gate for us, but we were having too much fun and got over the fence before he arrived.  We still heartily gave him a giant "xie, xie" for his effort, and he enjoyed seeing the kids, so all was well.  

And this ends JoJo's presidential aspirations

We arrived at the square to find a huge crowd already there.  There were tons and tons of Chinese tour groups there to see the sight.  You can recognize them because each tour group is given something to set it apart from the others -- usually a bright colored hat or huge button.  There were literally thousands of people there -- thousands of Chinese citizens and one (ONE!) family of American tourists.  We stood out like nothing else.  An old lady on the street stopped us and sold us two Chinese flags for something like a dime.  We let JoJo and Hyrum carry them.  Oh how the Chinese loved to see the boys waving these flags in the air.  I have this sweet picture of JoJo on Herman's shoulders, waving his Chinese flag high, as the Chinese flag is raised in the distance.  It is definitely the picture that will ruin JoJo's presidential aspirations if he ever decides to go that route in the future.  

Up she goes!

The ceremony was nothing really spectacular -- very similar to something you would find in America.  We were pretty far back in the crowd, so we couldn't see what was taking place at ground level, but as the flag was raised they played the Chinese national anthem as the crowd watched reverently.  Then after the ceremony the giant jumbotrons (I think that's how you spell that) in the square turned on to play some sort of patriotic montage of the wonderful places and people in China.  It was pretty interesting to see, but I really enjoyed just watching all of the people there.  We were stopped over and over and over by people wanting to take our pictures since we were obviously the only tourists in the vicinity.  

At the national flag raising ceremony

Before the police intervention

When the ceremony ended the adventure began.  We walked around the square to see the sights.  There really isn't anything there.  It definitely looks like you would think a communist era square would look like -- very austere and square with little decoration.  My thoughts, of course, were drawn to the events that occurred there more than twenty years earlier.  It was so surreal to think of that as I stood in the exact same spot where they occurred.  What was crazy was thinking that those thousands of tourists standing on the same spot had NO idea what had happened.  Amazing!  While we were there we saw some old men flying amazing kites on the square.  We watched them for awhile and then saw that there were a couple of people selling little kites that we could fly.  We bought a couple of them, and the kids started flying them.  I was standing a little in front of them, taking pictures, when I heard a loud horn blaring and turned around to see a police car barreling my direction on the square.  The officer inside started waving his hands at me and the man selling kites next to me.  I high tailed it out of his way, and the car stopped.  The officer started yelling something at the kite seller.  I figured the seller was doing something wrong, so I headed back to the family.  Then the officer came over to us where we were flying our kites.  He didn't yell at us quite so forcefully, but he definitely wanted us to know that we shouldn't fly kites there.  We got the message, but Herman said, "Just smile really big and pretend you don't understand."  So we did that.  We still put the kites away and headed off the square, but we just looked like the clueless tourists that we were.  That was an adventure!

Posing for the crowds on Tiannanmen Square

One of the Soviet era government buildings on the square

Chinese army guys leaving the flag raising ceremony

In front of the monument to the people

The jumbotron with the I Love China movie playing

We headed off the square and took some pictures right outside the Forbidden City.  It wasn't open yet, so we wandered through the local neighborhood.  We bought some breakfast food from some local vendors.  It wasn't really breakfast food, but it filled our tummies.  While we were there, some nice ladies stopped to pinch the kids's cheeks.  They loved on JoJo and Hyrum.  They didn't speak any English, but they talked to me extensively in Chinese.  I could tell that the gist of their comments was to scold me for not dressing the boys more warmly.  They were worried about how cold their hands were.  They might have been a bit right, but it was not really all that cold, and we were wearing jackets, just like we would be in America.  In China, however, the babies are dressed like Eskimos with layer upon layer of clothing.  It is adorable to see the babies dressed this way, but it isn't something I'm planning for my little ones.  I'll just have to endure the scoldings, I'm sure.

We are now part of some Chinese family's vacation scrapbook

After resting for a bit back at the hotel we headed to the Forbidden City.  I could not believe just how busy it was.  There were wall to wall people everywhere.  There were hundreds of touring groups.  It was not what I expected to see.  That is what I expected the Great Wall to be like.  Instead, we found it at the Forbidden City.  I wish that I could say that it was an enjoyable tour for us.  However, my crowd anxiety reared it's ugly head, and I was hyperventilating half the time.  Any time there was an entrance of some sort we all had to crowd our way through.  There were times when we got separated from each other, and we would have to part the sea to find everyone.  That does not lead to a relaxing day in my book.  The buildings were fascinating, I'll admit.  There were so many years of history in the walls of this fortress.  We bought an electronic guide to tell us everything.  It was hilarious once Katie got the guide because she behaved just like a true tour guide would.  She walked backwards with her hand to her ear as she repeated the history that she heard through the earpiece.  I see a future in tourism for her.  

Outside the Forbidden City

It's sad that there needs to be a sign to
remind drivers not to drive on the sidewalk

Chairman Mao up close with the Chinese tourists waiting to enter

Rubbing the golden knobs on the enormous doors for good luck

The Forbidden City is enormous.  There are so many things to see, but I think the experiences of the week had finally caught up with all of us.  We were exhausted.  After entering something like the sixth level of buildings we were just ready to be done.  However, Laney realized that we had forgotten to see a wall of stone dragons that she had wanted to see while we were here.  In order to get back to it we had to push our way in the opposite direction of the sea of people.  And yet we made it.  We saw the stone dragons.  We were satisfied that we had gotten the experience there that we needed to have, so it was time to head back to the hotel.  

Inside the first inner courtyard of the city

Finally Savannah's years of learning
Esperanto would pay off

Katie as tour guide

Battling the crowds to enter the inner courtyards. Ugh!

Another pretty building and more and more people

Another guard lion and another building

The infamous nine dragon wall
We battled swimming upstream against the crowds
to see this "must see" wall.

Spencer the ladies man!

Don't be deceived.  These toilets are much
nicer on the outside than they are on the inside.

We walked back to the hotel through the back neighborhoods of the area.  I think that this has been my favorite thing to do while we are here.  We are able to see what real life in China is like.  These are away from the tourist areas and in the midst of day to day living in China.  The tour books always say that we should take time to see the hutongs of China, but the tours tend to take people to the hutongs that are set up for tourists.  On our walks through the neighborhoods we walk through the hutongs that are just ordinary neighborhoods for the Chinese.  Hutongs are little neighborhoods that are enclosed off the main streets.  Many of them have doors that open into them, and once you pass through those doors you enter a completely different world.  As our big family of eight Americans walked through we encountered people who were not accustomed to having families like ours walk through.  We saw people hanging their wash outside and men working on construction.  We saw people walking their babies on a morning stroll.  All of them smiled at us and laughed as we said a big "Ni Hao."  I absolutely love these neighborhoods.  There is such a sense of family and community there.

At the famous Wangfujing Market.  Finally!

We returned to the hotel and rested our horribly tired feet for a few hours before we headed out once again to find the Wangfujing Night Market.  This day we were victorious.  Hurray!  This was the one thing that Herman really wanted to see when we came here.  This is a market of street vendors selling all sorts of exotic animal meat which they fry and season for our eating enjoyment.  There were some crazy things there, and we made a vow to try one thing that we wouldn't normally eat.   We walked through to get an idea first.  I saw some things that I refused to eat on any condition.  I would not eat snake, starfish, or sea horses.  We started easy with a stick of lamb meat.  That wasn't exotic at all, but it was yummy.  Finally I decided that I would eat a scorpion.  They had big ones and small ones.  I chose to be a bit of a wimp, and I chose to eat a small one.  Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it.  It was salty and crunchy and tasted a bit like sunflower seeds.  Not everyone felt the same way.  We had squid also.  I've had squid before, though, so that wasn't all that exotic to me.  But the kids hadn't had it before, so they gave it a go.  They didn't care for the rubbery texture.  It was interesting to see the market.  It was full of foreign tourists from all over the world taking pictures of themselves eating ridiculous items.  Obviously we were not the only ones who thought that this place was a must see place to visit in Beijing.  Herman and Savannah did decide to try the snake, and it was the only time I have ever seen Herman begin to vomit right after tasting something.  He spit it into the trash immediately.  Savannah got it down her throat, but she did not like it at all.  It was the one item of the night that we didn't finish.  Yuck!

The weird food choices . . . before cooking.  Some are still wiggling.
Yum!

Herman making his choices

Yes.  That is snake.  Ick!

Squid.

Scorpion.

Scorpion.  It really wasn't that bad.  Tastes like popcorn.

That's a devilish sort of look.

The snake that almost made Herman upchuck his dinner.

After this adventure we headed home. Herman got a cab me and the younger kids, and he sent Spencer along to "protect" us.  He made the mistake of agreeing to a set price with the cabbie before we left rather than using the meter, so we totally got ripped off, but it was worth it to arrive home without killing our already sore feet.  Our legs and feet are throbbing.  We have walked so far this week.  But it has been worth it.  Tomorrow we're off  to walk some more!  Loving it!

 I'll close with a video of the worst of family peer pressure as we encourage Hyrum to eat his scorpion.