Day 2, Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - We woke up bright and early because we had a busy day ahead of us. We ate breakfast in the hotel. It had an amazing buffet that comes with your room. American hotels could learn from the Chinese hotels. I'll have pictures of the buffet on another day.

After breakfast, we went with Peter and our driver to our first stop of the day, Tian'anmen Square. I took some pictures along the way.

This is a Peking Duck Restaurant.

Tian'anmen Square is the largest city square in the world and the spiritual heart of China. As you will see from our pictures, it was a hazy day. The haze was from the pollution! I couldn't believe it! It truly is extremely polluted in China. This was not a good day to see things clearly.

Peter took us to the center of the city. 

Enjoy the rest of the pictures!

Look at that pollution!

We did a pretty good job and hiding the fact that Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City were wall-to-wall people! There were tour groups EVERYWHERE! We were always bumping into people and being bumped into. My introverted-self was pretty exhausted by the end of just this part of the day.

We entered The Forbidden City which is located in the center of Beijing. It used to be the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties with a history of around 600 years. It is the grandest integral palace complex still remaining in China.

People...everywhere...

'V' for Victoria!

Here is where I was shoved profusely. For the love of humanity, people! Get a personal bubble! I was trying to see the throne in the throne room. HA! I could hardly get up there. I was literally being pushed around and had no control of where I was going. Thankfully, William was my shield behind me and kept himself pressed up against my back. It was CRAZY!

This is called Large Stone Carving. It is the largest stone carving at the palace and weighs over 200 tons.

Mushu!

I just love these "umbrella" trees. They are lovely.

They would bring rocks in from lakes and rivers and create "mountains" in their gardens. It's all a part of balance and harmony in their gardens. Hence, the rocks.

Look at that ceiling!

People would beg in the streets. Some provided entertainment for money. Some just sat there.

People...everywhere...

It was time for lunch. We had Peking Duck.

Kung Pao Chicken

Here is the chef carving our duck. He provided us with a platter of duck skin which we were to dip in sugar and eat. We tried it. We didn't like it.

The skin is on the left.

You take the duck and wrap it in the thin tortillas with cucumber and some sauce. It was pretty good. I didn't have to have the sauce on mine.

Duck Soup

We had sweet and sour pork at every Chinese meal. It is the only dish that is exactly the same in the United States. Kung Pao Chicken might be similar, but since it is spicy, I don't eat it.

Up Next: The Temple of Heaven