Forbidden City

Today I went to the Forbidden City/Tiananmen Square/Jingshan Park area with my soon-to-be-going-home American friends and one Korean classmate. It was SO cold. Low of -16 with a -19 windchill today. Luckily I was prepared and felt a bit like a marshmallow in my thick coat. When we got to Tiananmen my friends wanted to go in to see Mao's body in the Memorial Hall. The Hall was due to close at 12pm and it was already 11:45am. I had seen his body 5 years ago and didn't really feel a need to see it again so I took everyone's bags and waited for them outside. I watched all the touts standing around making people pay 10 rmb to check their bags...what a rip-off. While I was waiting, a Chinese lady, her small daughter and cute, old mother came running along wanting to get in before the doors closed. At first they didn't believe that you weren't allowed to bring in even a small purse, but I showed them my friend's bags and said it was true. Then the lady asked me if I could watch her bags and I said sure. I was amazed she would rather trust a random stranger (and a foreigner at that) rather than the bag-check guys around me. After she was finished she came and got her bag and asked me how much she owed me! Haha, of course I said she owed me nothing at all...But maybe I've just discovered a new way to make some extra cash while I'm in China. :P Here are all the bags I was watching....

Here's a picture of almost all of us after the Mao viewing, with the Monument to the People's Heroes in the background. From left to right: George, Tammy, Gina, Ivy, Daxian, me and Angela.
Kaitlin in front of the monument:
Me in front of the Monument:
Daxian wants to collect a picture of himself in all the different places pictured on the different renminbi bills. So here we are with the 100 rmb note in front of the Great Hall of the People. People seemed to find this a bit odd.
Here's a family posing for a photo in front of the gates. The one grandchild, two parents (they are taking the picture) and a number of elderly grandparents/relatives. They were a cute group!
This picture is rather blurry, but I like the "Happy Boy" on the back of this kid's coat.




A bunch of guys wanted pictures with Kaitlin (but ignored me....perhaps due to the marshmallow coast and the fact that I'm older? Dunno, but I didn't mind). So here's a picture of them all staring at her.
And here she is posing with one of them:
Here's Kaitlin imitating one of the singers from the music video for the song "Beijing huanying ni (Beijing welcomes you)" which was partially filmed in the Forbidden city.
Shadows...
Tammy taking a picture of the only two nanren (guys) with us today.


Jumping shots!
Failed attempt:
Success! But I really need to work on my jumping skills....how come I'm so low?
After the jumping success.
Love this guy's coat:
Inside one of the chambers:


In front of the tree in the garden at the back. The love tree....hence the heart poses in the two pictures.

Goldfish heartily surviving the freezing Beijing winter safe under the ice:
The view of the Forbidden city from the peak of Jingshan:

After this we were all utterly freezing, so we hightailed it home and I am so happy to inside and warm right now. Yay for central heating!! Tomorrow is meant to be even colder, so I might just stay in and work on homework rather than going out in the freezing cold!