And just like that- our time in Beijing is almost done.

We got to see much more of the city today, and I realized how beautiful of a city this is.  While many of the people are not the nicest (and will not stop for pedestrians at all when driving), the actual architecture and layout of the city is stunning.  A lot of parts feature very modern, vast skyscrapers, yet the entire city is very spread out.

We traveled by bus to the Tianenman Square area of the city, which is a very historically famous area.  The first place we went to was the National Museum of China, where we spent about 3 hours exploring.  It was very interesting to see many different sections of China’s history, and the museum itself was easily the nicest museum I have ever been to.  Some of the rooms that I found particularly interesting were the calligraphy room, ancient statues, and a room that showed all countries different dealings and histories with China.

We had another traditional lunch with the Chinese students, where we further got to learn more about them. We talked about many various topics with some of them, including social media usage, favorite movies, and food differences between China and America.

We then walked back and visited the Forbidden City.  It was an incredible sight of China’s history to see, however, we weren’t able to visit the Forbidden Palace because we missed the ticket booth closing by only a few minutes.  I was pretty disappointed at first, however, we got to walk along the outside of the Forbidden City which was equally as visually stunning.

My favorite part of the day was visiting the Wu Fang District, which is basically China’s version of Michigan Avenue meets Times Square.  It was extremely modern, with many recognizable stores mixed with Chinese culture.  In the district, we went to a very well known food vendor street that was filled with Chinese culture and cuisine.  The entire street was extremely crowded, and featured many vendors trying to get you to try all weird types of food.  I really enjoyed candied fruit on a stick, which was mini apples and strawberries on a stick that was covered in hard liquid sugar.  Myself and some friends also tried fried scorpion, which was surprisingly good! My friends also tried fried grasshopper on a stick.

We ended the day by eating China’s famous Peaking Duck meal, which is regarded as a very high quality dish in China.  A roasted duck is sliced and you dip it in soy sauce, put it on a mini crepe and eat it like a taco! I very much enjoyed this meal.

While stressful at times, Beijing was a great experience, and I can’t wait to fly to the Li’jiang area tomorrow morning. Pictures to follow this post!