Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City

Here we are in Tiananmen Square.  It was packed with people so we had to find a clear space for a picture.

 There were thousands of people lined up to see Mao's corpse.  I guess it shows the seriousness of the occasion that they actually were fairly lined up.  The lines wrapped all the way around the mausoleum.

This is one of the first courtyards of the palace, not the forbidden part yet.  You can see by the basketball goal and the lines of uniforms, socks, and underwear hanging out to dry, that soldiers still live in the palace to guard it.  Fortunately for them, being a eunich is no longer required.

 The Chinese tourists were constantly wanting to take photos with Hannah, me, or Sherrie, the other mom in the group who is blonde.  She was really cute and sweet about posing for them and was the most popular of us three.

I was in a group photo, so I made sure that Froggy and Little Panda were included as well.  I took a picture of the people taking our picture.  Only in China!

 I took this snapshot to show how Chinese men roll up their shirts to cool their bellies.  This guy had one that even Buddha wouldn't sneer at.  It was just swelteringly hot and smoggy all day, so we saw lots of male bellybuttons.  Most of them were innies, just in case you were wondering.

The crowd surges into the main outer palace courtyard.  I can verify that deoderant sales must not be very high here.

This is Froggy outside the building where the throne is.

He was especially fond of the large pots that stored water in case of fire.