Wednesday, March 21, 2012

CHINA [3/13]


Today we took on The Forbidden City. We walked thru a little neighborhood where our taxi dropped us & made our way to the ticket booth [40 RMB -- $6.50]. We entered the city & we were struck with the sheer size of the structures & large open squares between each structure.








There were also a ton of people who are pushy & unrelenting. Saw a group of school children on a field trip & desperately missed Kimmy. We kept walking & walking and finally encountered some unique structures and trees towards the back of the complex. 


We meandered, snapped pictures & saw lots of nooks. I fell in love with some carvings attached to the eves of most the structures of several ornate dragon/lions with the end piece being the Emperor riding a rooster. 



We kept walking, walking, walking back out of the Forbidden City & saw Tianenmen Square across a large road. Being quite tired & hungry – We simply took a picture from across the road.


We walked toward side street & found a great hole-in-the-wall restaurant that had a menu in English. Nicole ordered dumplings & I sampled for the first time & LOVED! We also had some great fried rice with steak & green peppers. Superb meal!


Caught a cab to the Pearl Market which highly resembled the Silk Market. The vendors weren’t as pushy at the Pearl Market. Unfortunately, neither of us were interested in the pearls but we did score some good deals.


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