Tiananmen and Forbidden City

The day began bright and early with breakfast at 7:45am. Today we got on a bus shortly after breakfast and headed downtown to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was very busy there. So many tourist and tour groups crowded the big square, but it was still amazing to look at the grandeur of all the buildings. The Forbidden City is very big with many gates and sections. Unfortunately, much of it is under renovation to prepare for the influx of tourist for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics. Fortunately though, I went to visit the Forbidden City two summers ago and was able to look at everything back then.
After walking through the Fobidden city a group of us decided to walk to Wángfǔjǐng street (王府井大街) where there are many places to shop. The walk proved to be a wonderful learning experience since we did not know how to get to the street from where we were, but I was able to ask for directions in Chinese and understand as well. It's really neat how quickly my proficiency in Chinese is improving. This is no doubt so because I have to use it everywhere here.
I didn't buy anything because I didn't need anything, but I did buy some ice cream at a Häagen-Dazs store. It was verrrry good: Belgian Chocolate flavour.

Since I didn't post a blog yesterday I'll included it with today. Yesterday I finally decided to buy a bike. She's a $20 beauty. It is very convenient to have a bike here, many of the other student have bought one too. I also uploaded a video of the man playing the flute at the Bejing University lake that I wrote about in the last blog. You can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9zAp733KhU