Delicious Red Beijing Duck

BEIJING -- Capital of the People's Republic of China
北京

So yesterday I got back from a trip to Beijing.

We landed and headed to the Great Wall,
the Kotel haMizrahi, as it were.

We went to a less touristy part.
It was long. And had lots of stairs and was very old.

You could imagine lots of horses in the valley below coming to attack you
and pushing down the ladders
while Huns were trying to climb them and invade your country and rape your wife.
I have to describe historic events to myself from a personal view
to convince myself they actually happened.

We partied that night at HouHai, a local bar district,
which was actually a neon loop around a man-made lake
There were live "bands" in every bar (= shitty guitar players and chinese singers karaoke-ing US music)
It kinda hurt my soul a bit.

Much cooler than HouHai was the Forbidden City,
with all those really typical looking China buildings.
I'm pretty sure I recognized one of the huge opening areas from Mulan.
The place was huge, miles in every direction with extremely large buldings
over perfectly flat paved squares.
The place was built in the 1400s,
and was inhabited by an emperor and his concubines advisers and servants up until
1911. Pictures tell the story best.

There were like 5 squares of this size one after the other in a straight line. The central axis of the city is directly lined up with North-South, entrance at the south, you move North and North until you get to the emperor's personal home and garden at the top.

Metal, Jade, and Gold versions of these were all over the place.
This one was about 15-20 feet tall, 10 feet wide, and 1000 ft Bad-Ass.

Thats a young couple taking their wedding photos.

There was also plenty of Communism around,
which was pretty cool as well. Tianmendfc Square (with the tanks and the...you know. ) was big and...uh square.
We wanted to go check out the Mao Zedong Mausoleum, where he lies in state (and formaldehyde), but there was a meeting of important party officials and we weren't allowed in.
They were having a meeting around his body to discuss future Party decisions,
as if he was watching them...crazy.

Statue outside of Mao's resting place. Everyone in the statue is a worker.

That portrait is at least four times as tall as you are.

GO PROLETARIAT!

I also had Peking Duck,
in Peking.
Which was pretty damn tasty.

Those are the highlights, but there is definitely more, and I will be posting again in the next few days with pictures of some of the CRAZY treasure they had in the Forbidden City, the story of how I made friends with a Communist guard (and how he gave me my Chinese name), and a picture of the crazy toilets they use here. TUNE IN NEXT TIME!!!