Thursday, Part I

Yesterday was gray, hot, and humid. The photo on the left is Tiananmen Square. It was very large, gray, hot, and humid. We arrived at the south end and walked to the north so we could continue on to the Forbidden City.

On the East side of the square, there is an Olympics display with the stylized competition figures (that are used as a motif throughout the city) created in flowers. The photo below shows the rowing figure and part of a floodlight. Trying to jockey for position to take a good photo is challenging. Everyone around us is 18" shorter than we are and they weave in and out and in front of us like minnows around whales. So, please excuse some of the extraneous items in my photos. We can pretend they're the result of milling crowds rather than lack of skill.

We left the modern city behind when we entered the Forbidden City, or Imperial Palace as it is also known. Nathan and John are standing in front of the gates to the City. I'm having problems with the Internet so will need to finish this later.

Back again, it's Saturday morning and the Internet appears to be up again. It's 6 AM and the sky looks blue again!

I apologize for the way the days are getting mixed up on this Blog. I'll post a little schedule of what we've done each day to help with the context, not that it greatly matters unless you suffer from chronological OCD. Also, I'll post the Forbidden City pictures in a new article because I'm having problems uploading them into this one.