On our first full day of sight seeing in Beijing, the five of us head over to one of the prime tourist spots: Tiananmen Square. Tiananmen definitely has an opposing feel to it, which I guess is the point. The place is huge, massive even. I mean, its a public square you can drive rows of tanks through. The square has a total area of 108.7 acres, which makes it the largest open-urban square in the world. Check out a satellite photo.
I don't know about you, but when I think Tiananmen, the next thing I think of is tanks.
The 1989 protests in Tiananmen
While the place is best known for the 1989 protests outside of China, it has a much longer history of importance inside China. Tiananmen actually means Gate of Heavenly Peace. The square was built in 1417. It was also the site of the proclamation of the People's Republic of China by Mao Zedong on October 1, 1949.
We wander around the square for quite a while. While crazy big, and a little scary, the place also manages to have a festive feel to it. There are tons of people there. People bring their families and just hang out. There are even a number of people flying kites. On one end of the square is the entrance to the imperial palace and the forbidden city. This is the spot with the big picture of Mao. One must of course get their picture along side Mao's.
The gang, with Mao
Mao, being the humble man that he was, put his own mausoleum on the other side of the square. A lot of people are somewhat angry about this. Saying it ruins the flow and design of the square. We were mainly bummed that the mausoleum wasn't open. Chrissy and I were shooting for the Communist dictator trifecta (Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Lenin in Moscow, and Mao in China). It was not to be.
The other thing going on in Tiananmen, was a bunch of guys/ladies selling tourist type crap. You could get everything t-shirts, watches, ice cream, kites. Whatever. Chrissy pickuped a nice Mao watch.
A quality Mao watch
We eventually leave the square and head into the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is one of those key places a lot of people think of when they imagine what China looks like. The place has 980 surviving building. Its huge. We spend hours walking around. You just go from building to building to building.
Looking at the Forbidden City from Tiananmen Square
One of the controversy's going on with the Forbidden while we are there is that Starbucks has opened a location inside the palace. What were they thinking? This place is the symbol of Chinese heritage. By the time we are there the good folks at Starbucks have at least taken down their logo and sign from outside. But you still can go into the coffee shop and get yourself a coffee and then continue your tour of the palace. So there are people everywhere walking around with Starbucks cups. A lot of Chinese people don't like this, understandably.
The outside of the Starbucks and the generic sign pointing the way
I have sense heard that Starbucks has yielded to pressure and has removed the store. Good for them. Now they just need to get rid of the American Express signs that are all over the place in the palace. Yes, American Express. I think they are some kind of renovation sponsor.
For lunch we eat at a noodle shop within the palace. This place basically serves ramen noodles. Who said ramen wasn't a legit ethnic meal? After many hours in the palace we take our leave and head out to experience one of the other big things you need to do while in Beijing. Eat a Peking duck.
There are two really famous Peking duck restaurants in Beijing. They are are called Quanjude and Bianyifang. We went to Quanjude. This place first opened in 1864 (different location). Its where all the Chinese government big wigs go to get themselves some Peking duck. The restaurant itself is huge and can seat as many as 2,000 people. Two million roast ducks meet there end here every year.
The technique to roast a Peking duck is a very complicated business. It evolved from the art of roasting suckling pigs. First, the restaurants get the ducks from special farms and only special chefs can prepare the ducks. Then they follow a long set of steps for each duck. I won't go into all of it but somehow they actually inflate the ducks like ballons so that the skin is all stretched tight and will roast properly. With these ducks, its all about the skin. The slicing of the meat off of the duck is also a big production. A skilled chef can slice one duck 100-120 times in just a few minutes. They do this on a cart by your table.
So here we all are in this famous duck joint, with John (born and raised in Beijing) serving as our guide. We sit down at a big round table and John takes care of the ordering. As is custom we you go out to eat in China with family and friends, he orders a ton of stuff. Being that this is a restaurant specializing in duck, you can of course each just about any part of the duck you can think of, and John does a good job or ordering a variety of duck parts. Heres a list of our dinner items:
A few tasting notes on the above. The hearts actually taste like bacon of all things. Not bad at all. We had a whole plate piled with the tongues. A ducks tongue isn't very big. These were kind of chewy as you would expect. The feet tasted like a vegetable, it was almost like a cabage of some sort. Now on to the scorpions. We had seen these live in markets all over Asia. They have them squirming around in big plastic buckets. Eating them was mostly a novelty item. They are supposed to taste like shrimp. You eat the stinger and everything. I thought they didn't have much taste.
Check out some photos:
A shot of the whole spread
The chef doing his magic slicing our duck
A plate of duck tongues
Cheers,
Bill