The Temple of Heaven is China’s largest existing complex of ancient sacrificial buildings. It was built in 1420 for emperors to worship Heaven.

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Tiananmen Square is the world’s largest public square and a grandiose projection of Mao Zedong’s communist China. In fact, the center of the square is marked by the Chairman Mao Mausoleum and at the north the Gate of Heavenly Peace features that prominent portrait of Mao.

For the Chinese, thousands upon thousands visit here every day and the square is a source of national pride. However, to the outside world Tiananmen Square is best remembered for the Massacre in 1989. Approximately 100,000 student and worker protesters peacefully marched in Beijing demanding democratic reforms. On June 3rd and 4th, the Chinese military crushed the demonstrations and the Red Cross reported that 2,600 civilians were killed and 30,000 were injured. Student protesters maintain that 7,000 were killed. After the violence, the government conducted widespread arrests to suppress the remaining supporters of the movements.

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Tiananmen actually means “Gate of Heavenly Peace”. The Gate of Heavenly Peace is part of Tiananmen Square and the entrance to the Forbidden City. Today’s gate structure was first built in 1417. It was from here that Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People’s Republic of Chine on October 1, 1949.

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The Forbidden City (named such because it was off limits to commoners for 500 years) is China’s best preserved cluster of ancient buildings. The palace grounds are made up of 800 buildings, 9000 rooms and measures 720,000 sq meters. The Forbidden City was constructed by over a million laborers and the palace was the governing home to both the Ming and Qing dynasties. China was governed from within these walls up until the 1911 revolution.

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These are the pictures that we almost never got. The Great Wall was one of the most frustrating yet exhilarating experiences for us.

We had started the day before trying to catch the 10:30am tour bus but we got there too late. As such, we got to the bus stops south of Tiananmen at 6:00am the next day. We were on the first bus to the Great Wall that day. The only problem was that the bus went to two shopping malls, an amusement park, a restaurant and the Ming Tombs before going to the Great Wall. We didn't actually arrive at the Wall until 5:00pm. And, by the grace of God if we hadn't found an ATM at the Ming Tombs we would have arrived at the Wall without enough money to pay the entrance fee.

Otherwise, Badaling was an amusement atmosphere as we had been forewarned but the experience was remarkable because you were standing on a part of the history. The Wall was built as an impenetrable line of defense and stretches over 5,000 km from the Liaoning province to the Gobi Desert. Work on the original Wall started over 2000 years ago during the Qin dynasty. The Wall at Badaling was built during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and was heavily restored in the 1950s and 1980s.

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A few pictures from the ferry to/from Hong Kong island and pictures from atop Victoria Peak.

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