Tiananmen, Mao and Olympic skating!

Our hostel--the 365 Inn near Tiananmen Square

Today was another interesting and non-touristy day. We walked from our hostel to Tiananmen Square which is about 10 minutes away, with the plan of seeing the square, visiting Mao's Tomb if it was open, then meeting our friend Henry Zhang at the Monument to the People's Heroes. To get to the square we had to cross the street and the only way to do that was to walk through a subway/underground walkway. When we got to the bottom of the stairs we discovered that we had to go through security screening of our bags and ourselves in order to enter the square. It was not an invasive process and we were soon on our way. We walked to Mao's Tomb and saw a steady flow of people coming out. None of them was carrying a bag and I remembered reading that bags weren't allowed in. We walked around the building to the opposite side where people were going in and saw a sign with the rules which included no bags or cameras and that ID was required. We hadn't brought out passports with us so I asked if we could go in without them. The guard told me we could but that we had to check our bags.

Jarrah at the exit of Mao's Tomb

The baggage room was across the street adjacent to the Chinese Museum and was in its own building. We crossed the street--there was a zebra crossing--and stood in line to check our bags. I heard someone in line say that it was 2Y per bag. fine I thought. What I didn't realise was that cameras were extra! When we got to the counter the woman there asked how many cameras we had and we had to show her each one. I'm not sure why cameras are so important. (Maybe they are on the look out for people with more professional equipment who may be filming something without permission? It's only a guess.)

Then back to the square and into the queue for Mao's Tomb. The line moved quickly and soon we were inside to the first room with a marble statue of Mao seated. In front of this many many people had left single yellow flowers in memorium. Then in the next room we saw Chairman Mao's body lying peacefully within a large glass enclosure. The guards kept everyone shuffling through steadily. We shuffled in past the foot of his body and along his left side and then we were out and into a small gift shop. We walked back around the building and across the street to retrieve our bags then walked to a public toilet in the next building and was surprised to find a gift shop! I don't think I've ever seen a gift shop in a toilet! They had all sorts of Mao memorabilia including a video screen showing historic footage of red guards marching. I took a photo of the gift shop!

Gift shop of Mao memorabilia--in a toilet!!! Ladies to the left, men to the right

We crossed back to Tiananmen Square again--going through screening again--and went to the monument to meet our friend Henry. It is a long story as to how we know Henry. Suffice it to say that we met him via the internet just before he came to Melbourne to study for one semester 7 years ago. We spent some time with him when he was in Melbourne and have kept in touch with him since. It was great to see Henry again after so much time. We piled into his car and headed off with him to the university where his father teaches and his parents live as we were all going to go to lunch together. The name of the university is Beijing Jiaotong University. Henry grew up there and did some of his studies there but also studied at another university in Beijing. Henry parked the car and we walked into the campus where the kids saw something they love--a frozen lake. Some students were walking on the lake and the kids couldn't resist doing the same.

The kids couldn't resist walking on water again!

Then we walked to a restaurant on campus which is for faculty members and got a lot of looks from the diners as we walked through the main dining room to a private room where we met Henry's parents. Henry's parents were lovely. His father is an engineering lecturer and his mother is a middle school Chinese teacher. They ordered lunch including a variety of fish, pork and vegetable dishes. Another one was Beijing duck. We had a nice chat over the meal then said our farewells and went with Henry back to his car.

Henry and his parents with us in the faculty dining room . You can't see it here but there was a large flat screen TV on the wall to the right of the photo for our use.

Henry then took us to the Olympic site and we saw close-up the Birds Nest and Water Cube and also the stadium where the gymnastics was held. Our friend Mara had told us that there was a temporary ice skating rink in the Olympic Park and the kids were absolutely itching for the opportunity to ice skate. We found the rink just near the broadcast tower and Jade, Jarrah, Henry and I rented skates while Paul watched and filmed us. We skated for about an hour. Jade and Jarrah had never ice skated before. Jarrah was pretty good right off because of his rollerblading experience. Jade started out hanging onto the wall at the edge but caught on fairly quickly and by the end was skating pretty confidently. I had a bad fall soon after starting, falling backwards and slamming my head into the ice. After that I realised that I had to lean forward a bit and managed to keep my feet the rest of the time. We finished up at 5 and then Henry drove us back to our hostel. It was yet another unique and memorable day in Beijing.

At the Birds Nest Stadium