THE NOT-SO-FORBIDDEN CITY

Day 5, March 26th

An intimate moment in the Forbidden City.

Some places you travel to are just checklist places.  You go so you can say you have been.  The Giza pyramids in Cairo, Egypt are like that.  The romanticized beauty of the pyramids is heavily diluted by the overly commercialized efforts to turn a profit.  There is a Pizza Hut directly across from the entrance to the pyramids.  But, you can’t blame the people.  They are just trying to make a little cash during the most difficult of times.  Nevertheless, their overt exploitation demeans the very history they are cashing in on.

The Forbidden City is the same.

Protecting The Forbidden City.

Rock structure in The Forbidden City.

Today we slept in a bit and headed out for the Forbidden City, driven more by curiosity, and less by a desire to see it.  This is another one of the national Chinese treasures.  It, along with the Great Wall, seems to be one of those sights in China that people from all over the country make a pilgrimage to see.  It felt like half of them were there today.  The City his huge, 430,000 square meters.  But, with so much of it reconstructed (it was built in the early 1400s) plus the many gifts shops and basketball courts within the city walls, it is almost impossible to understand the history of this place or the importance it holds in the psyche of the Chinese people.  Add on top of that the fact that there were thousands of people there, the three of us kept looking at each other saying, “At least we can say we saw it.”  It literally felt like a theme park on a busy weekend with long lines and no rides.  Oddly enough, there used to be a Starbucks in one of the shops lined up with all of the other gift shops.  Apparently, that crossed the line of decency in capitalism and it is no long there.  A triple grande soy caramel latte certainly would have made that experience much more enjoyable.  We hustled through as quick as we could and checked it off of the check list just as fast.  Done.

Tableside duck carving.

After that, we headed south down to a place called Qianmen Quanjude that serves traditional Peking Duck.  Apparently, it is a delicacy here, more so than teh-sah-cols, cause there was no duck to be had at the night market.  Quanjude was packed and we had to wait about half an hour to get a table.  It’s a very ceremonious meal and one of the many chefs brings the roasted duck to your table and carves it there for you.  You mix the duck with a little sauce and a few vegetables in a small pancake, roll it up and eat it.  Throw in a cold Tsingtao beer and it was pretty good.

Mom learning to make a Peking pancake.

Once we were able to check Peking Duck off of the list, we found a Starbucks to regroup at.  After a refreshing latte, we strolled through the Temple of Heaven Park, rode the rails back and to The Red Lantern and called it a day.

I would like to take this opportunity to compliment one of my little soldiers on spreading his wings.  Dad was bragging about how, while I was resting in my room, he went off all by himself to a convenience store to purchase band-aids.  He gave them money, waited for change and found his way back, all by himself.  My little boy is growing up.

Checking off the check listly yours,

Peking Kevin

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