China-allowed in the Forbidden City

Yesterday, I woke up early and went to the Forbidden City, one of the main attraction in Beijing. It is an entire part of town consisting of large temples, with names like the "Hall of Supreme Harmony, Hall of Central Harmony, etc. Each hall served a different purpose, such as one to entertain guests, one to hold court, etc from the years 1420-1912. It was nice, but the city was crowded, and I have been in China and Hong Kong for almost 6 weeks, and I have seen lots of Temples, Bell Towers, and Drum Towers. I am sort of burnt out on them. So all of this wonderous splendor that people come from everywhere to see was wasted on me.

After that, I walked across the street to a park called Jingshan park, where a giant Tower on the hill, where I got great views of the Forbidden City. The park also had some pretty gardens with lots of flowers. i walked around for a while, took pictures, and then walked out and enjoyed the nice spring weather.

After about 1/2 an hour of walking, I walked into a hutong. A hutong is a traditional neighborhood in Beijing, where people live in small houses with alleyways in between, and often on main streets nearby are plenty of shops and restaurants. i walked along one for a while looking at the various shops and having some cheap street food, which was good as always.

I walked along a little more for another half an hour. I wanted to find an English guide on Beijing, and online I saw there was an English bookstore-so I took the metro there-taking one line about 5 stops, and connecting to another line. The entire trip was roughly close to 40 minutes, and it was miserable because the pokey train stopped at a lot of stations and I had to stand the entire way. I got out of the metro at a neighborhood with a modern shopping mall, Intercontinental hotel, and office buildings. i found the bookstore-bought a small guide, and dreadfully spent another 40 minutes on the metro to head back to the hostel.