Tiananmen Square

After the silk factory we went and ate lunch. I'm pretty sure the meat we were eating was not chicken.

Us in the middle of Tiananmen Square in front of the Monument to the People's Heroes (125 ft high). Tiananmen Square is literally the "yard" in front of the Forbidden Palace. A feng shui requirement is that every piece of property is required to have a "yard" (some piece of land) in the front of the house no matter how small the house is. Tiananmen Square is 440,000 sq meters and is the largest city square in the world.

The columns represent the different tribes within China:

There were HUGE monitors displaying the different sites within China for all the visitors:

They were getting ready for the 60th celebration of communism (it was held in Tiananmen Square). This is the Tiananmen Gate of the Forbidden Palace, and the portrait is of Mao Zedong (Chairman Mao):

Looking at the main gate with all the preparations for the ceremony:

You can see the bridges to the gate behind us - the emperor was the only one allowed to cross the middle bridge. The empress was allowed to use it once in her life - the day she married the emperor.

The square all lit up at night: