Lucia Piscoglio, May 9

May 9, 2011

Lucia Piscoglio

Today we traveled to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City; Tiananmen Square was completely different from what I thought. The square was huge and in the open; my impression of it was that it would be a bit smaller with just the building with Mao’s photo on it. The square itself seemed peaceful yet it was completely filled with many visitors. In addition, there was a huge Chinese flag in the square, which was surrounded by two guards in glass boxes. Also, the picture of Mao looked huge and the building was very detailed and breathtaking. Due to the fact of the builder’s attention to detail, it just made the whole experience so surreal.

While visiting Tiananmen Square the visitors loved taking pictures with us, which made it a little difficult to explore the entire area. Yet, it was hard to say no to such nice people. It was also interesting to see how appreciative and nice they were to us for just taking photos. In addition, we all were enjoying taking pictures with the natives and some foreigners. I especially wanted a picture with an army man, yet sadly we were unable to get any pictures with them because they had to follow specific rules in which they could not stop walking in their “unit”. They patrolled the area and I was able to get a few funny pictures with them and with one of the policemen.

The Forbidden City was a totally different atmosphere. It was shocking how big the area was and how long it took us to make it through the entire city itself. One of the group members, Liz, purchased an audio tour guide which really helped us understand the meaning of the different buildings and what exactly took place in this area. The buildings all looked the same, however, at the top of each roof there were “beasts” located on the corners and the number of “beasts” represented the importance of that building. The most important building was the one where the emperor resided; this building had 11 “beasts” located on the top of the building. This city was huge and the fact that this one family had this entire area to do as they pleased. It was an amazing image; picture an area five times the size of The White House with acres of land and beautiful buildings surrounding it. Also, it was amazing each room had a specific purpose. The Forbidden City was my favorite part of the day because of the calm and peaceful atmosphere, and the sight of these buildings was absolutely beautiful.