My Trip to Beijing: Day 2

	Day 2 started off with a trip to Tiananmen Square. Here's the Chinese ummm... Politburo? Parliament building? It's where the government does its governing thing, anyway. And that giant pillar is a memorial of some sort, but I forgot. Probably to soldiers fallen during the revolution. People seem to like pillars for that sort of thing.
	Here's one of a pair of statues outside Mao's tomb.
	And the other.
	And here are me nd Greer in front of the tomb itself.
	The entrance to the Forbidden City.
	With me and Greer (note we left off our commie hats that day).
	There were a metric buttload of soldiers patrolling the Square. We'll have no repeats of that incident in 1989, thank you very much.
	A bit closer to the Forbidden City.
	A closeup of dear old Mao.
	One of the many, many gates inside the Forbidden City.
	Here's another gate/palace. This one was sadly under renovation.
	Just to prove we were, in fact, there.
	This is the largest carved stone slab in the Forbidden CIty - all one piece.
	A gate that's been recently rennovated.
	A look at one of the throne rooms.
	One of a pair of lions flanking a gate. This one's just worn, but on some of the giant water pots you can see the bayonnet scratches where invaders from Western countries tried to scratch off the gold as a little bonus pay.
	Here's the other lion.
	The lovers trees at the exit to the Forbidden City - two trees that grew to entwine eachother.
	And just for kicks, a palace on top of a huge, jagged pile of fake rocks.
	Then, we moved on to the Temple of Heaven. This was in the extensive gardens. There's a better explanation than I can give in the next picture.
	And here it is.
	That's the temple (currently under rennovation) in the background. In the foreground is the place where retired people in Beijing go to hang out. There was cards, juggling, music, and lots of other stuff to do.
	This plaque explains the trees in the next picture:
	A cypress embracing a pagoda tree.
	A closer picture of the temple
	This walkway extended from the temple to the ceremony grounds.
	The center track was only for the emperor. Needless to say, we took our picture on it.
	Dragons climbing a tree.
	And the explanation.
	Here's the entrance to the ceremony grounds mentioned earlier. Looks like something out of Diablo.
	And the altar itself.
	The emperor (and maybe priest?) stood on that stone there and could be heard by the entire crowd. It's said that if you stand on that stone and make a wish it'll come true.
	...so, of course, Greer did.
	And so did I.
	And here's the explanation.
	The altar from another angle.
	We stayed at a four star... toilet? Yeah, only for a little bit, buit I've never seen a ratings system for toilets before. It wasn't really even that nice, honestly.
	Next, we stopped by the silk factory. Here they are unwinding the silk threads from the cacoons you can see in the water.
	Next up: Central China TV Tower. It beats Tokyo Tower in height.
	And it has cool dragon-y sculptures at it's base. There's apparently a race around the base twice, then up to the observation deck (258 meters, I think) every year.
	Here's a picture from the top of the tower. Damn that's some pollution!
	This picture demonstrates it pretty well too. You can also see some very similar-looking masses of apartment buildings.
	Another view of the lakes two pictures ago.
	I liked this housing complex. Especially the yin yang in the courtyard.
	This lady was playing at the restaurant where we had dinner.
	Lastly that night we went to see Chinese opera. Here are the actors putting on face paint. It was really acrobatic and cool-looking. Don't get me wrong, I like Japanese culture as much as the next guy, but Chinese opera can kick kabuki's ass in terms of entertainment value any day of the week.

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