September 12, 2006

• Check out my fu jing wang!

  A dayy or so after the hutong tour, the fam and I decided to mosy on over to tiananmen square, because, hey what is the point of a tourist attraction if there are no tourists there to see it, right?

  
  The workers memorial in the center of tian an men square, ironically enough, under construction. Tian an men translates to square of heavenly peace.

  
  The square is flanked by several important structures…on the east is the government building. You can tell by all the black audis, which is the unofficial govt car of china. No kidding…every one we saw had govt plates

  
  At the south end is The entrance to the forbidden city, which you will not see pictures of today

  
  At the north end is mao’s mausoleum. Inside are two mao’s. Not because even the chinese cant tell each other apart, but because in the spirit of lenin and stalin, the chinese opted to preserve mao’s body by pickling it and displaying it in a pressure sealed airtight glass chamber so it could be observed. However, the natural process of decay and the years have begun to take their toll on pickled mao, and since his neck was kind of melting, the govt made a wax version that is on display while the real mao is under reconstruction. Heh. Plastic surgery on a corpse. creepy. However, it was still a pretty awe inspiring experience to walk in and observe. Whatever you may think about mao, the man accomplished a lot given his beginnings, and love him or hate hiim, the chinese respect that (most of them actually love him, if you were wondering…there were many flowers brought in and laid at the entrance to the observation area)

  
  And here is me at the west end of tiananmen in front of the national museum and the olympic countdown clock. We decided to step in, to check out the jade burial suit the museum had on display

  
  Please note the jade crotch…this guy wasn’t insecure about the chinese being “so small” was he?
  
  And while we were there, a visit to the wax museum was already included in the price of admission, so why the heck not?

  
  Lunch followed…i sadly was unable to squeeze the juice out of the watermelon, so i settled instead for shark fin soup…which disappointingly did not have the jaws fin sitting on top like i pictured in my head

  Next stop was wang fu jing, a well known shopping mecca

  
  Seriously how old do you think this guy is…15-16?

  
  Goods of babies? man they dont mess around with those sweatshops do they? then why do you supposed air jordans are still so dang expensive

  
  Given as how i was studying traditional chinese medicine, i figured i should check out a traditional chinese pharmacy. Not like a western one at all, full of sights and smells nd so not sterile looking (i mean this in terms of personality, not cleanliness)

  
  This is an asthma lizard…if you have respiratory problems, you are supposed to brew this sucker in some tea, inhale the vapors, and drink it.

  
  This is jew medicine. Actually i cant back that up, but unlike the asthma lizard, no empoyee could pantomime to me what this was for

  
  The last of those pics is the entrace to the wang fu jing night market. Let’s take a look shall we?
  
  I have eaten everything you see in the above pictures

  well not the people, as that is generally frowned upon, but the bugs and sweets and stuff. proof to come soon mary. Well, soon for me anyway

  -J

  • 12:00 am
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