Hitting all the sights....

My second full day in Beijing was action packed.  I woke up early to go to the forbidden city which was the home to 24 Chinese emperors.  It's a massive complex with over 800 different buildings and is supposed to be one of the must-sees in Beijing.  Overall it was great - the sheer size and grandeur of the buildings coupled with the ornate detail was a really interesting combination.  While the big, more famous spaces were impressive, I actually enjoyed exploring more of the smaller side areas where no one else was around and you could really appreciate the beauty of the space because it was so much closer to you.

Different scences from the Forbidden City

Once I left the forbidden city, I ventured to the Jingshan park which has "highest hill in Beijing," giving you a  birds eye view of the forbidden city and the surrounding area.  I was originally just going for the quick look, but I ended up spending a lot more time the than I originally planned.  First, it was just a lovely place to be.  They had flower gardens in bloom everywhere that were still covered with water droplets from the rain a few hours earlier.  Second, when I got to the top of the hill, there was a temple building  that housed a gigantic gold Buddha where all of the Chinese visitors were praying....very cool to see.

View of the Forbidden City from Jingshan park

After a quick lunch, I headed out to meet a Minnesotan family friend, Joe, at the 2008 Beijing Olympic facilities.  The facilities were cool but there's also this massive beautiful park that was built as a haven for the games, so we walked around the area for a few hours and caught up on life and had Joe tell me more about his time living in china.
Finally, I ended my day some of the famous Beijing Peking duck at dinner with some Brits from my hostel at one of the highly recommended spots for locals.  As the Brits would say, "it was a very nice spread!"