Today is our big tour of Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and Wanfujing Street. Although Beijing is no longer intimidating, it is very smokey. The pollution irritates my nose every time I go outside. Also, the sidewalks are considerably dusty, so by the end of the day my feet are black. Beijing does remind me more of New York City than I expected it to. Especially the traffic. The city is just as congested as New York City with cars and with a lot more bikes and motorcycles, but there are absolutely no rules with driving. I watched on as a car created its own passing lane on a busy sidewalk! It is absolutely crazy. There are ten times as many accidents in China per unit area than in America.
The down town area of Beijing has amazing architecture and, as I was happy to find, is much cleaner. We started our day in Tiananmen Square which is the size of ten football fields and then entered into the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is absolutely huge and complex. Many of the buildings use pillars for support but were built with no screws or nails. This architecture is something that is definitely intriguing for a structural or civil engineers. This is also something that could be included in educational breadth. Different cultures have different techniques of doing things and should share them to increase the global ability. Our last stop was Wanfujing Street which is about the equivalent of Times Square to New York. We visited an upscale mall as well as a back alley market where I purchased some souvenirs. Something that I was not expecting is that the majority of tourists here are actually from the Chinese country side as opposed to other countries so we stick out like a sore thumb. It’s been a very full day and I’ m exhausted from all the walking.