This is the first incoherent installment. Keep in mind that I was traveling with three other people, Brennan, Max, and Bryan and that I will probably mention these people and use the term 'we' a lot, assuming that you have some idea of who I'm talking about.

My first day waking up in Beijing was devoted to the two biggies of the city. The Forbidden City, which should now be known as the Really Full of Tourists City, which really was stuffed to the gills with tourists, mainly Chinese.




The other big sight was Tiananmen Square, which is famous in China for mostly things other than the 1989 protests on behalf of Democracy. Max suggested that we do a reenactment of the famous photograph of a single protester standing in front of a tank, but since you can't really make a tank out of one person, and a protester out of the other person and still have somebody to take the picture we abandoned that notion.

There is a big mausoleum smack dab in the middle of the square, guarded by men in uniform that stand under big green umbrellas all day. Mao's remains are displayed from 8am to noon every day, and our timing was never right, so we didn't get to see the Chairman. Also on the square itself is a giant statue to "The People." Max kept wondering why giving them the definite article is necessary, but I think that referring to "the people" and just "people" gets two very different ideas going. We had been warned that the square would be full of hawkers and people trying to scam tourists into buying overpriced art, but for our explorations that day we didn't get bothered at all. The flapping of the red flags and the nearby honking (because anywhere in China there is a road there is honking) were far louder than anyone trying to sell cold water or souviners.



The funniest thing about the first day to penetrate my befuddled, jet-lagged, scared-country-mouse-in-a-huge-city-of-13-million-other-mice brain, was when two Chinese guys came up to Brennan in The Forbidden City and wanted to take their picture with him. He was't even wearing the kilt or the individually toed shoes that day, so was just kind of a scruffy, fluffy white guy. Noteworthy enough to have your picture taken with, though.



I felt extremely popular when I ended up in the position of having my picture taken by strangers as the token foreigner. It happened three times in the Guanzhou airport alone. Though one guy did it all stealthy like, the other two ladies came up and posed with me, holding their hands in peace pr v-for-victory style. I have no idea why that pose is so ubiquitous when you are standing with an American, but it happened over and over again.

In the afternoon we had to leave our hostel to catch a train (my first Chinese train!) to Hengshui, to go to the wedding of one of Bryan's cousins. And that's where the real adventure began. (In eating, anyway.)