Also, more weird bikes.
And this was entertaining to me for some reason.
I had heard that Oreos were an initial failure in China and had been dramatically changed to sell more, but all I could find were regular ones.
Finally!
With my ticket finally in hand, I was able to enter the Forbidden Palace.
It was surprisingly large. There were colossal open spaces and massive buildings. It started out kind of boring since a lot of the buildings looked like earlier buildings we had seen, and there wasn't much else other than buildings, but some of the later stuff was really cool.
I'm not sure what "made possible" entails (time travel?), but of all the companies, it had to be one with "American" in it.
In Japan and Korea, couples or like father and son might match, but the Chinese have taken it to a new level.
There were things (random things like clocks and watches apparently) other than buildings, but we skipped out on them and just went down the main path.
There was the rare person dressed up for the event.
They had a very strange tourist video going on on some TV.
Appears to be one of the least comfortable lounge chairs ever. You could only lounge in that exact pose.
Some sign mentioned a Nine Dragon Wall. Chicago's Chinatown also had a Nine Dragon Wall (based on somewhere, which I guess is probably this Beijing one), so I was excited to go see it.
Even if I had to buy another ticket to get in.
The ticket was technically for a larger area, but I just wanted to see the wall.
Then we explored a little bit into the area the ticket let us into before remerging back into the main path.
I tried to get a picture of this dragon thing, but without making it incredibly trapazodial, I had to hold the camera well over my head and hope for the best. It didn't work out well.
The path eventually led us back to the center and we continued on.
There were some small exhibits in the side buildings. I probably wasn't allowed to take photos, but it's not like they turned out well anyway.
The last section was surprisingly small and dense considering the rest of the place, and most strikingly, full of plants. And weird rocks.
Finally, we reached an exit.
And saw the thing I went to last time instead of going to the palace. Fortunately, we avoided going back. My friends seemed tired of looking at things, especially since they began to feel like everything was very similar.
I'm sure that'll be a lovely photo.
Another ban on exploding car roofs.
I finally decided to try to figure out what those ice pops that every person was eating constantly.
It's basically just sugar-flavored.
I finally rode a Chinese bus. It was pretty standard. We decided to take it to the front to look at the stuff in front of the Forbidden Palace.
I tried some more street food. Which may or may not have been made from things found on the street. This was pretty good though, if incredibly hard. Tasted like peanuts.
They had a pretty neat system of warning you about how deadly the food was with a convenient, easily-recognizable smiley face.
I led my friends to the shopping district I found the Tomas [sic] the Train stuff earlier on the opposite side of Tian'anmen Square, and we hung out at a Starbucks for a while, trying to get wifi or whatever (but China blocks non-Chinese phones). I decided to part from the group and go find the main Beijing train station since I always try to get a photo from the main station (though usually because it's my first look at a city). I had thought it didn't exist because I didn't see it on the train map, but then realized the "Beijing Railway Station", I had been skipping over was it and that I should learn British.
Trash cans cleverly disguised as part of the landmarks.
Sure enough, it existed.
I like their attitude!
All signs pointed to it existing.
And it did. I finally found it. Just a few days in.
As usual, the view from the main station didn't really capture the city or look all that impressive. I tried different angles to find the least not-impressive shot I could.
I wanted to go into the train station, but some complicated-looking ticketing and gate system prevented me. I think you needed to have a train ticket to somewhere to enter to keep it from being over-crowded.
I tried looking for a different kind of entrance or anything, but all I found were shady-looking restaurants and baggage checks.
I took a lot some photos and set off to go see something I read was built during the Mongolian dynasty, or when the Mongolians ruled China, or however you want it described.
The real danger in jumping onto the platform is the decapitation on the way down.
Definitely a different style of advertising to join the military in China.
I like to think this hospital proscribes things like scorpions, but I'm also impressed the word medicine appears twice in a row. So it's extra healthy.
In China, when you lose your job, apparently you have to gamble to eat.
Some cool alcohol shop or museum or something.
It took way longer than I expected, I had taken so many wrong turns, but I eventually found the place.
And also this.
Just like the place I had visited yesterday with my friends, finding an entrance proved difficult and I circled the wall for a while.
I did eventually find it, and these bike things.
Apparently it was two things, but, unfortunately,
tickets were required, but
it was already closed.
I had spent so long at the train station and trying to find the place, it had just closed.
I decided to just settle for photos of the outside.
Men in China really hate shirts in the Summer. I was pretty surprised to see a bunch of old people playing hacky sack.
With the sun setting, I decided to head back.
Camel.
I decided to grab a picture of one of the ornate doors just sitting in an alley.
And the Chinese Oreo I finally ate, just being a regular Oreo with seemingly no unique qualities from American ones.
While the Oreo is a boring point to end this post, the next day was overflowing with photos, so it's going to need it's own post, so deal with it.
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