Bryan's Trip to Beijing

I got to spend a week in China at the end of April, participating in a workshop sponsored by the Chinese CDC. Here are a few pictures from the trip.

Here I am in Tiananmen Square, looking towards the Forbidden City. There were some notorious riots here 20 years ago. There is a huge picture of Mao Zedong, the founder of the Chinese Communist Party back in the 40s hanging on the wall, and Mao's refrigerated body is on display in a large memorial building on the square. (I didn't get to go inside the building.) I went back to my hotel and tried googling Tiananmen Square, but I couldn't open any of the websites -- they've been censored by the government.




This is me and my helpful friend, Dr. Yie, inside the Forbidden City. China's emperors lived here from the 1400s to the early 1900s.





The Great Wall is about an hour or so north of Beijing. Here are a few pictures. I've never seen more tourists in my life -- most of them were Chinese.








The next two pictures are from the Summer Palace. This was the countryside retreat of the emperors. It's spectacular, with beautiful gardens, a large lake, and lots of fancy buildings. The first picture is of "The Long Corridor," which is a pretty walkway paralleling a lake for almost 1 kilometer. The second picture is looking up towards the Tower of the Buddhist Incense.








I ate without using a fork, spoon, or knife for over 5 days. Some of the food was very interesting, to say the least: chicken feet, chicken heads, coagulated blood soup, pig ears, lots of seaweed,... I didn't know what I was eating most of the time. I typically enjoyed the food, although I got a little tired of eating Chinese food for breakfast.



If you're interested, more pictures are here.