Days 6 and 7: Mao, Roast Duck, and Pandas

Day 6 was filled with visits to Beijing's most famous tourist sights. I started my morning at the Temple of Heaven. This is where the Chinese emporers came to pray to the gods for a good seasons harvest.  I walked through the parks northbound towards my next stop, Tiananmen Square, but first I wanted to stop and get lunch.  A few city blocks away was a hutong, which are small residential areas being preserved by government (most of them) where Li Qun famous roast duck is located. I first heard about this place through Anthony Bourdain and his show No Reservations. I love roast duck and I didn't care what the price, so naturally I did what I needed to do.

Eventually after a few minutes of searching, around a corner in a small alcove and a mini garden courtyard where tables were located. Im assuming this place sees its fair share of foreigners as the menu was in chinese as well as English, French, and German.  They bring the whole roasted duck out for you to see before they chop it up for you. The plate of duck and its crispy skin is accompanied by sliced cucumbers, onions, and a delicious plum sauce that all gets thrown together and eaten out of a little tortilla like roll. Yes, I ate a whole duck (or at least the parts they served me). And yes I spent what amounted to about $40 on lunch. But I didnt care, the duck was highly enjoyable.

Tiananmen square is gigantic. Its by all calculations the biggest city square the world. Right smack in the middle of it is the Memorial Mausoleum to Mao Zedong, the famous Chairman who opened up China to the rest of the world. Inside is his embalmed body on display for visitors to see, but is only open for 4 hours each day. The memorial was closed by the time I reached it.

Tiananmen Square is also bookended by The Great Hall of the People and the China National Museum; two enormous buildings displaying commie architectural styles at their finest.

On the northern side of the square is the renownes Forbidden City. It houses the former residences of Emporers and features gorgeous temples and grans gates, along with smaller temples to the side and grand staircases for all. I lingered for about two hours exploring.

Above the Forbidden city is a hilly park with amazing sweeping views of Beijing. Behai park, which houses the winter palace sitw beside with an impressive lake and even more temples. By this time it was around 4:30 and I walked a few city streets past government buildings back to the hostel. I had booked through them tickets to see the Beijing Opera. The Opera itself was hysterical, a case of unintentional comedic relief at its finest. The place was built for tourists, and it wasnt an entire show but moreso 4 'select/famous' scenes. The plots were basic and easy to understand, but some of the Chinese to English translation were beyond misinterpreted I imagine. Case in point "How dare you scold me as my son is pissing!" What does that even mean!? The costumes were pretty neat, music as well and I'd probably go see a legitimate show if I ever had the chance again.

Friday I got a late start to the day (waiting for laundry to get done as I had run out of underwear) and didn't heas out until about 11. My first order of the day was Beijing zoo,which was a bit underwhelming as some animals and facilities didn't look like they were tended to properly. The panda exhibit however is the crown jewel of the zoo, and the 3 pandas on display seemed to be happily munching away on some sticks of bamboo.

A few stops on the subway to the northwest was the Summer Palace and Kunming Lake. I started on the opposite side of the hill from the lake and climbed to the top and was treated with some very scenic views of the large lake, mountains, and a pagoda and a few bridges off in distance. I descended the hill and made my way south along the bank until I hit another subway station and back to hostel I went. The family that runs the hostel were making homeade dumplings and a few of us pitched in to help for the hostel dinner. After dinner led to more talking amongst the hostelgoers and I met some pretty cool people. We shared stories and talked until close to 11 when we all called it a night.