Boxing Day, second day in Beijing.

We slept in a little later since we had an early day before. The plan was to explore Beijing this day. Our first stop was Tianamen Square. We had to stand in a long security line as it was Mao's birthday. They didn't seem as concerned about us, waving us through and not checking our bags or identification as they were the Chinese.

We didn't stay too long in the square and soon made our way over to the Forbidden City which is directly across the street. There was a second security line, though it moved quickly. We went into the outer courtyard but instead of going all the way through, decided to walk around the outside near the moat.

We walked to the north end and into Jingshan Park, which had a lovely shrine at the top of the hill and great views of the Forbidden City. It was a healthy, steep walk to the shrine, so afterwards, we were all ready for lunch. Billy had a specific restaurant he wanted to take us to, so we hopped on a city bus and went to eat. This restaurant specialized in dumplings and we sampled a ton. Fillings included lamb, pork and chive, vegetable.

After lunch we explored some hutongs for shopping. The first one we went through was so unexpected, full of hipster bars and very upscale clothing stores…with lovely Chinese designer clothes, but beyond our planned budget!

The second hutong was had more bars (not quite so trendy) and shops with more touristy items. We had fun picking up cloisonné, silk scarves and ceramics.

Hutongs are unique to Beijing. They are the tiny alley neighborhoods that used to fill the city but are now being ripped down to make way for development. By tiny, I mean the width of the streets, as the length of the Hutongs is long. An average Beijing block is probably at least 4 to 5 times a US city block!

We used the subways a lot while in Beijing. They were very efficient, if a bit chaotic…there is no waiting for passengers to disembark before crowding on. Everyone just surges in whatever direction they are going. We got quite adept at agressively pushing our way off the train. Nine people pushing and saying “Go! Go! Go” are tough to ignore!

The city itself is a bit of a sensory overload: noisy, crowded, and overflowing with cars.

For dinner, we met Billy's Luce compatriots and friends and family at Man Fu Lou, a hot pot restaurant, a Chinese spin on Shabu Shabu. All the meat was varieties of lamb cuts, enoki mushrooms, dumplings, weird bamboo mushrooms, noodles, spinach and other greens, sweet potatoes and radish. Unlike Shabu Shabu, each person had their own pot, which was a picturesque metal pot, with a center chamber that heated the broth.

After dinner, the boys joined Billy's friends at a bar while the rest do us returned to the hotel to turn in earlier as we had to leave for the airport at 5:15am.