After our lack of success with the taxis yesterday, we decided to walk to Tiananmen Square. It was only 3.6 Km and the weather was fine again. The route took us through some very interesting streets that I don’t think many tourists would have seen on their organised tours. The street food and shops were targeting the local people and were so interesting. We walked past a large hospital and outpatient area as well, and it looked very busy.

   

Mick was keen to be snapped with one of these bikes as they are branded with the same name as our son Thomas’ business in Dubbo. We think they are a courier service. There were many of them in this part of Beijing.

  

We arrived in Tiananmen Square in less than an hour and were quite early as there was no line up at all to go through the screening process. We had been warned that this can take ages and we noted as we were leaving that the lines were lengthy.

  

While there we stood out a little as Mick was the only one in shorts and not wearing a coat. 

  

The bulk of people there we part of organised tours Mick has called ‘capitulations’. We’ve noticed heaps of these while we’ve been in China – each tour group wears the same colour cap.

  

On our way to cross the road to the Beijing Museum, I was asked again to be in a photo with one lady’s mother – unfortunately Mick missed the formal pose, but you get the idea. 

We were lucky to get in as we should have had our passports. Mick had his driver’s licence and I had a VISA card. The guy kindly let us in but told us next time to bring our passport. I didn’t have the heart to tell him we would not be back.

  

This place was huge and so beautifully clean. There was only a small amount of information in English, but we did enjoy it. We spent over two hours here and enjoyed reading (the propaganda) about Mao Zedong and the communist party. It has got us both interested in finding out more about China’s history.

  

We found loads of restaurants on our way back to our hotel that sold Peking Duck. We were no where near the TripAdvisor recommended ones, so just went with the local restaurant. The duck came with pancakes, cucumber and shallots and we had ordered some duck bone soup and salted duck (deep fried next pieces). It was delicious washed down with a beer. Mick took a photo of the guy behind me who lit up a cigarette just as we sat down. I did not see what they ordered BUT I heard them enjoy every slurp. And I knew he was finished when he punctuated the silence with a hearty burp.

  

   

Mick had earlier spotted a foot massage shop and we decided this would be a good idea after our excursion. 

  

We had enquired about the price and were told 50RMB for 40 minutes. The woman really worked hard on Mick’s feet and neither of us quibbled when she said she was finished after 20 minutes. Mick said he could not have taken any more anyway.