Slept pretty well back in the “soft” bed in Beijing after the long day yesterday.   Had some fried eggs on rice for breakfast with some sausages and fried potatoes.   Tried the hawthorne juice today – kind of a floral citrus taste.  

Met the group for our trip to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Palace.   We walked through a hutong, an old style neighborhood, on the way to Tiananmen Square.  Apparently there used to be thousands of hutongs in Beijing but now there are only around 900.  

We made our way to the square, stopping to take some photos of the old city gates near the square.   We then made our way through the security and onto the square.   It is very large and imposing.  We took some photos of the square as well as the entrance to the Forbidden City, with the well known photo of Chairman Mao.











Then we crossed over to the Forbidden City to tour through the massive grounds.  A lot of buildings and walking!  Lots of tourists in the two areas.  The Forbidden City was the home and workplace of the emperors.








After the tour we headed back to the hotel  via the subway. 

Back at the hotel we stopped for some lunch and a bit of a rest.   Tried some pizza for lunch and it was not bad.  Updated my blogs and got ready but didn’t manage to get much rest in before it was time to meet for the acrobatic show and dinner.  We walked to the show, which was very impressive and definitely worthwhile to see!  One of the acts included 6 motorcycles racing around in a cage ball!





After the show most of us went to three goodbye dinner as tomorrow was a free day and some people had very early flights the next day so there would likely not be a group dinner.  After dinner we headed back to the hotel for a drink before heading to bed to rest up for the bike tour tomorrow.