Today we visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We took the bus to Tiananmen Square which surprisingly wasn’t far at all from the hotel. When we got there, it was super crowded. There were people everywhere and it kind of reminded me of going downtown in DC at the national mall and seeing all the monuments. Tiananmen Square had that appeal to it but with a more ancient and historical feel. Because it was so crowded, and we were a group of Americans in the center of it all, so many people came up to take pictures with us, especially me. From there we crossed the streets to start a very long journey on foot through the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is the palace where the emperors from the Ming to the Qing dynasty stayed and held personal ceremonies and public ceremonies. The Forbidden city holds 980 buildings all for various purposes. In front of me were historical structures of rich culture that have been standing for centuries. There was so much to see but as we walked through each section it seemed like the same patterns were repeated in each courtyard with buildings all around with similar features. When we finally reached the end of the forbidden city I was already so beat, but there was still much more on the agenda for the day.

When we got on the bus I was so tired it was hard for me to even wake up for lunch. After lunch we continued our way to a Hutong community which is a preserved neighborhood of narrow streets and courtyard living homes. The exterior of this hutong community is meant to be preserved in order to keep the rich culture of ancient China alive. That is something I’ve noticed about China and admire, the desire to preserve their history even through the massive development that takes place around it. We were taken around the community in rickshaws. I remember noticing how when we went through the community, I saw so many luxurious cars but the houses themselves looked to the American eye like an impoverished community. I noticed the contrast, but I didn’t get an explanation until we sat down with our tour guide. She explained how the home owners are forbidden from remodeling the outsides to preserve the historical look. The homes in this hutong community are worth millions, which is crazy to imagine.

After the Hutong tour we headed for the Temple of Heaven where we had our Tai Chi class. I was really excited about this because I had never taken any form of martial arts but there we were learning Tai Chi from our instructor. I’m not sure how many of those moves I’ll remember in the future but at least I can say I took a tai chi class at the temple of heaven. After the class we went into the temple of heaven, which is a place the emperors would go to worship the god of heaven. It was really beautiful, and I got a lot of nice pictures. After this it was back to the hotel and our last day in Beijing has come to an end.