Crowds in China

Today was my last day with my parents. I am sad they are leaving tomorrow; the time with them flew by!

This morning around 11 we had the brilliant idea of going to Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City. I am not sure why I didn't just put my foot down and say NO. I mean, it's not like I haven't done that plenty of times before. But instead I just went with it.

When we got a taxi I told the driver we wanted to go to Tianamen Square and he immediately laughed. October 1st-October 10th is China's national holiday. Therefore, every single person who has off travels. Which also means that probably more than half of the population goes to Beijing and to Tianamen Square. Here is a picture for proof...

The entire cab ride I kept telling my parents how terrible of an idea this was. When we pulled up my mom said, "OH Ralph..." Of course Mr. optimistic said it was the experience we were going for. And what an experience we had there. You could hardly move around. We saw one 11 year old girl (thats just a guess) peeing in a plastic bag in the middle of the square. Really? Is that necessary. One little boy took a poop as well. I think they need to make a law against using the restroom where ever you please.

So, we walked around the square for a bit. Found out you can't see Mao after noon; that was a disappointment. Then we started to walk towards the Forbidden City until I saw a HUGE line of people. When I say HUGE I am not exaggerating. I'm pretty sure those people standing in line were going to wait for four hours. Totally not worth it. Especially since we had all been before.

Thankfully we decided to go back to the hotel and have lunch. I got Singapore fried noodles again. I love them.  Dad ordered another half chicken but they brought him the whole chicken instead; including the chicken head. I was completely amused, Mom on the other hand wanted to throw up.

After lunch we rested for a bit. I took full advantage of the comfy bed since I only had it for one more night.





Around 5pm we left to go to Houhai; my favorite place in Beijing! We walked around the lake for awhile. I bought a pair of chinese handmade shoes and a scarf :). Then we stopped at a tea house and had tea by the lake. The tea was extremely expensive! After we drank our expensive tea we headed to dinner.









Dinner was AMAZING. We got these prawns in a bucket of salt; an entire bucket of salt. I could not have been happier. SALTTTTT!  I think my dad had two and I finished them off. We also had really good fish, fried rice and dumplings.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and had our last round of cocktails. I sure am going to miss cocktails every night.