10-17-2005

6:30 AM - a beautiful morning. Skies are clear and you can see for miles. The buildings in the sunrise with the mountains in the background make quite a view. Today is set to be very busy. Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Pandas at the zoo, big Peking Duck dinner and Peking Opera. ... 11:50 PM - what a day. I should have taken the fact that the bus had an accident shortly after leaving the hotel as a bad omen. Once again I was rushed through Tiananmen Square, this time even faster than our last visit. Then we got a very condensed trip through the Forbidden City followed by and even more shortened tour of the Summer Palace. Everywhere we went today was a madhouse and too crowded with Chinese people. I think the problem is that the country¡¦s newfound prosperity has allowed too many (from my POV) people to travel. Take away all the Chinese and the remaining tourists would have made for a very nice day. Everywhere we went was swamped - you couldn't get a clear view of many places and others you had to fight your way through pushing and shoving people. I know this is a very selfish attitude, the Chinese have every right to be visiting their historical sites, it just seemed that they all decided to come at once :-( The one bright spot was that I was able to get my treat at Starbucks within the Forbidden City. But even that was not without expense. It took so long we lost the tour and had to hurry to make the exit meeting. I think our whole time allotment there was only 1:45 minutes-an absurdly short time. Our time at the Summer Palace was only 50 minutes. All in all a very disappointing day.