Free-Day in Beijing

Today was our last full day in Beijing, and we had the entire day to ourselves. Some chose to do an organized tour of either the Great Wall, biking in the countryside or a shopping/massage excursion, however I chose to revisit some of the city sites and go to the last remaining temples that I had not yet visited.

After sleeping in and a nice long breakfast, I jumped on the subway (which has a stop about 25 yards from our hotel) and rode it over with a couple of friends to the Forbidden City. When we first visited this site, we were on a time crunch, so we didn't have much opportunity to learn about the history and really see all of the grounds. So this time, my buddies and I hired a tour guide named Charlie and went to each of the buildings and went in depth to the particular meanings and history of each. Our tour guide was great and told us he was a former professor that is retired and now gives tours of the major sites in Beijing. I was impressed with how he was able to talior the tour around our interests, and brought in a lot of US history and described how events in the US and the rest of the world impacted China and the goverment structure throughout history. Overall, I was glad we came back because now I feel that I have a much better appreciation for this historic site, and really enjoyed having Charlie show us around.

After our 2 hour tour, we jumped in a taxi and went to the Lama Temple, which houses the largest Buddha statue that was carved from a single tree. It was enormous, and must have been at least 5 stories high. This was the first time I've ever been to a place like this where I could see people worshiping at the various temples, and I could see the Buddhist monks chanting and mointoring the religous sites.

For our last dinner in Beijing we went to a very authentic resturant...The Hard Rock Cafe! A group of us wanted to have an American dinner, so the Hard Rock hit the spot. There was a live band and it made for a great atmosphere.