Tian'anmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace and Pork Chips?

We had a busy but great day today.  The weather was perfect, mid-80's, sunny and breezy.  This morning seemed like it was a little smoggy but by early afternoon there was bright clear sky. 

We walked from our hotel to Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City.  Both are spectacular and it is hard to imagine how they were constructed.  The Forbidden City is a great example of imperial architecture and has over 800 buildings and 8,700 rooms.  Needless to say we didn't see them all. 

We then took a cab over to the Summer Palace which also gave us a great view of Beijing as we traveled through it.  Our cab driver was very nice, he didn't speak more than 2 words of English but he tried to give us a tour.  The only thing we understood that he pointed out was the Beijing TV Tower.  It was kind of funny but we enjoyed him and his efforts. 

The Summer Palace was my favorite and a definite must see.  It is a huge royal garden that was built in 1750 by Emperor Qianlong to celebrate his mother's birthday.  What a gift!  We spent most of the afternoon wandering the grounds and the palace.  This is also where we decided to get "lunch".  The selection was limited.  The most popular item was a microwaved hot dog on a stick which we both decided we were going to pass on.  We decided to get a snack of Lay's potato chips and bottled green ice tea.  Well we didn't realize that the potato chips were pork flavored until after we opened them.  Since I am not someone who ever passes on any sort of chip I gave them a whirl.  Needless to say, they were not good!  We both ate 2 and threw them away. 

We headed back to our hotel and had "Afternoon Tea" in the lobby of our hotel complete with cucumber sandwiches and scones.  Quite yummy!

Tomorrow we are off to The Great Wall!