The second half of my Beijing trip included walking around Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Being in Tiananmen Square was pretty cool. After seeing pictures/video of the 1989 protests I could not believe I was actually there.
After walking around the Square, we went into the Forbidden City. Although I liked being inside the Forbidden City, it was probably my least favorite part of my time in Beijing. Not because I did not like it, but because I could not spend enough time to enjoy every part of the City. Since we had to check out of the hotel buy a certain time we had to cram touring the Forbidden City in 2 hours. That was very bad time management on our part. We were not able to see all of the City and I could not enjoy the parts that I did see because I rushed through everything. When I go back to Beijing I will make sure to spend a good 4-5 hours walking around the Forbidden City.
The next part of my Beijing trip, although it was not necessarily in Beijing, was being able to visit Professor Chen in Langfang. It was really cool to see a professor outside of the school environment, and to see them in a completely different country is really something. While in Langfang I was able to see the inside of an Chinese apartment, try almond milk, try duck prepared in China, see a very lively park, and walk around the area with Professor Chen and her sister.
Some things I noticed while in Beijing:
Compared to Shanghai, Beijing is less open to foreigners. This surprised me since I thought that they would be more welcome to seeing foreigners due to Beijing being a tourist area. Although Beijingers were nicer to me, my others friends did not have too many pleasant experiences with the locals.
Some taxi's will not stop for foreigners. During the trip I would usually have to hail a taxi because the taxis would not stop for my friends.
Some hotels will slide business cards with "naughty" images under your door. We had business cards advertising "lady massages" slid under our door everyday night.
Although this probably happens in other parts of China, it happened in Beijing therefore I will mention it. Some people mysteriously know English but will not use it. When a friend and I went to eat we did not understand the payment system, so we tried to converse with the cashier in broken-chinese. Oddly enough, after 15 minutes of speaking Chinese she finally replies in English. Surprisingly it was not elementary English either, she could say everything with correct grammar too!
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