We have only three days in Beijing in which to see a huge number of sites so on Wednesday we walked to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.
Most of us will remember Tiananmen from the problems of 1989. The square is the largest in the world and it is impressive from that perspective. There are references to Mao Tse Tung everywhere, including his tomb, stores and huge portraits of the man.
The line ups to walk into the building to see Mao's body were long and somewhat orderly. You must turn in your purses and backpacks before getting in line. We were dismayed at the length of the line and the time it would take us to check our bags when a man grabbed Alice's hand and literally dragged her ( of course, we followed) to the front of the line. He pushed people out of the way and pretty much forced us to butt in line.
It saved us time but not money...he asked for 50 Yuan as soon as he got our luggage tag. This whole thing happened so fast that I forgot to check my camera and after going through the whole procedure and almost getting to the mausoleum doors the guards found it in my pocket and quietly and efficiently kicked me out!
I decide to spend my alone time by getting our bags out of storage and was accosted by the same man who proceeded to save me time by pushing people aside and getting my bags. More money!
No comments:
Post a Comment