Beijing Bye Bye
Sea Date March 12, 2024
Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.
Tian'anmen Square is the largest famous world square, eclipsing Delhi's India Gate Complex and Warsaw's Parade Square, on its expansion in 1959. It fulfilled Chairman Mao's vision of being the largest square in the world for 17 years, until 1976, the year Mao died.
It's now the seventh largest city square in the world (and the fourth largest in China [2019]), at 440,000 square meters (109 acres) in size. It can hold about 1 million people for public celebrations or gatherings.
This area was mobbed. There was high alert security because the People's Congress was in session. Our guides managed to get us through special shortened lines and get us in front of the throngs of tourists. Our guides have been miracle workers for us! Our friends on HAL tours waited in very long lines.
Back to the cruise terminal. That was bizarre and eerie. First, we couldn't find the ship. We ended up in the container port. For reasons beyond our comprehension, our van needed to back up about a mile with traffic and trucks whizzing by. Whe we found the ship we couldn't figure out how to get on! The terminal was huge. We couldn't find a door. No one anywhere to be seen. There should have been 1,000 people returning to port. It turned out they were almost all 4 hours late, past all aboard time. Major border/immigration and lost tourist problems.
I saw Tim perform this evening and danced at the Rolling Stone. My unnamed partner passed out in the room.
Tiananmen Square
English Architecture near the square. Train Station?
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