My China Trip, part 2

Hello everyone. I'm sorry that I have to split the posts about my China trip, but I think that you guys wouldn't want to read one huge post. It'd be easier to read in little chunks, right?
Before I go any further, I wish the best for those in China right now. In Beijing, they had a huge storm and it flooded the area. It's terrible, especially in the humid conditions. Even in Taishan and Hong Kong, there are typhoons. I was just there last week. I hope things are okay there.

Now, back to the trip. Well, the next day was our last day in Beijing, which signaled the near end of the tour for that area. We packed everything up and put our luggage on the tour bus. Our first stop was this medicine/herb store and that place took a long time . The parents were the main reasons, since they kept asking questions and that stuff. But, finally, they were all done and it was time to go to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. I've always wanted to go there since I learned about it in my World Cultures class my sophmore year.

It was  not how I had expected it too look like. I think one of the main reasons is the pollution/clouds in the sky. It covered up the sun. 我不喜欢。 But, other than that, it was up to my expectations. The building, with Maozedong's picture on it, it was just the weather that threw me off.

The inside of the Forbidden City was huge! There were so many buildings and places to visit. The emperor's place, the queen's place, the garden, everything. It was all so beautiful. But, it did sprinkle on us a little bit, but the rain stopped after. What was cool was that part of the China police (or military) marched right through, and they were singing. It was amazing, but, unfortunately, I did not record it. But, I did take a picture of them. :)

After going through a billion small places in the Forbidden City, I still do not understand how people were able to walk around without our types of shoes. The ground is so much different, and the doors were smaller too. After exiting, we were bombarded with locals trying to sell us stuff. There are actually a lot of them around tourist attractions, trying to make money to make ends meet.

I forgot some of the things we did that day, but I remember going to a famous shopping street. It was pretty big and amazing. There were so much retail stores, American and Asian ones. But, be warned. Do not buy items from American stores. They will cost twice as much in Asia. I also saw a McDonald's there too. There are tons of McDonald's in China, actually. I'll tell you guys more about my McDonald's experience in China later, but what I can say is that their ice cream is delicious. At that street, I got the vanilla ice cream with chocolate in a cup. Their vanilla ice cream cones are delicious as well. They also have melon flavor ice cream, taro and all that good stuff, at McDonald's.

Anyway, back to Beijing. They also sell tons of street food too. My friend wanted a coconut milk drink, from an actual coconut. It was pretty cool. They also sold bugs, squid and that stuff. I'd never eat these, but, some of the locals actually like them.

Anyway, I forgot some of the things we did that day. I think that was about it. We did get free foot massages, which felt nice. The people were students and were practicing it on the people in our tour group. The students were mainly men though. Anyway..

After the foot massage, we were off to the airport and on the plane to go to Shanghai. On the plane ride, we got peanuts that were delicious.

Now, the Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuxi and other city tour was around 4 days, I think. It might have been 5. All I know is that it was a city a day. Anyway, I'll talk about that tour in one post, the next one. See ya next time.

再见！