Tiananmen, Grand Theatre and Owen's Grandparents!

Oh my!

Its only been 5 days and we've already seen SOOO much. This program being called "intense" is somewhat of an understatement. We get up early, listen to lectures that are hard to understand at times, and then get on a bus and walk around until its dark outside, then do it all again the next day. FUN!

But seriously...it kind of is fun. Lots of cool people and lots of cool things to see. I truly feel like were making the best use of our time, every minute is accounted for, no time for bullshit or what I like to call farting around.

The first major landmark we saw was Tiananmen Square. Its quite impressive, you walk, walk some more, walk even more, then you go underground and come back up some stairs and your soon surrounded by hundreds of feet of nothing but open space.

High density is an understatement for Beijing, so i guess you understand the magnificence of a plaza so big it can fit over a million people at once.

Tiananmen is surrounded on four sides by new age buildings that represent the power of the Chinese Communist party, the most notable is one that houses the remains of Chairman Mao.

The weather has been SUPER overcast the whole time, so my pictures haven't turned out too great, but worth seeing nonetheless.

here's a picture of one of the buildings...and me:





















Close to Tiananmen is the new Chinese Grand Theatre which is more often referred to as "The Egg." Its a massive white oval built on a shallow pool of water. You actually enter from stairs crawl under the pool and end up under the egg. Were planning on getting tickets to see a show one of these days but word has it the only show now is Chinese Opera, the Chinese students didn't seem interested, i wonder why...

here's a picture of it, its so big the whole thing doesn't fit in the view...
















After the egg Owen took me a few blocks away to visit his grandparents home. They live in a courtyard house in the Hutongs around that area. Hutongs are small alleyways that are characteristic of the old neighborhoods of Beijing. Owens grandfather is an engineer and he remodeled his home to include a second story and rooftop patio space, the first one in the entire area. You can actually see Tiananmen from their new balcony space, and the roofs of everyone else's house.




















So yeah, we've been to The Summer Palace, Behai Park and the Temple of Heaven but that will have to wait since its already 1:30 in the morning and were going to the Great Wall tommorow and the Olympic Village.

So...

Much to come...

Stay tuned!


Ehsaan