Umm, Where's the Sky?

 I had been pre-warned about the sheer pollution in Beijing as well as other areas of China, but it was still even worse than I imagined; this morning when I woke up, I instinctively looked outside to assess the weather and then had to chuckle—it always looks overcast, no matter what; you can gain no knowledge about the weather by looking up out of a window.

In spite of this however, our first full day in Beijing was phenomenal; we knocked out three of the must-sees: Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Temple of Heaven.

Previous to our visit to Tiananmen Square, I hadn’t heard much about it, except there was the massacre there just over twenty years ago (while walking through, Lucas loudly commented, “Where are the tanks?”—definitely not supposed to mention that!). In any case, it was much larger than I was expecting. As far as purely skin-deep aesthetic beauty, I would have to say it was a bit underwhelming; the monument in the center was cool, sure, but it was hardly impressive to the point of being unique. As was the case with the Forbidden City, I’m sure if I had known some more of the history behind it would have meant more, but with my level of ignorance it was just an impressively big square.

Despite my minimal prior knowledge of the Forbidden City, that was certainly as impressive as the Square was lacking; the meticulous detail in almost every part of every structure in the compound was incredible.  The architecture of the buildings was astounding, and the imperial gardens, complete with small, artificial-rock hills, was nice. Here’s a fun fact about the Forbidden City: during it’s five hundred years of operation, twenty-four different emperors have been at the helm. Thinking of the number of presidents we’ve had in the US's short history, this number seemed low to me, but then I remembered that the Forbidden City probably didn’t see quite the same turnover as the White House! 

As for the Temple of Heaven, that compound was nice as well. As with the other two attractions, I wish I had known a little more of the history behind it (the information signs were few and far between) but it was still cool. My first impression of the main Temple was that someone had taken a small cathedral and just gone to town on it—the artwork this thing was embedded in was fantastically colorful and unbelievably detailed.

Oh and I almost forgot, we had our first experience with haggling today; it was so much fun! The vendors are extremely aggressive, and it was great watching all the showdowns between them and the students in our group, as well as attempting to take some on myself. We’ll definitely be spending plenty of time at the open markets in Shanghai.

So far, it has definitely been a cultural experience. The mainland is a whole different world than Hong Kong, despite technically being part of the same country. It has been cool to be here, and I'm stoked to see the Great Wall tomorrow!