Sunday, April 22, 2012

Beijing Trip Day 2 - Tiananmen Square

On our second day at Beijing, our group were brought to visit Tiananmen Square. In simplified Chinese, Tiananmen means "The Gate of Heavenly Peace". Tiananmen Square is the largest city square in the world, with a mixture of a lofty monument, a magnificent tower, solemn halls and a great museum. It occupies an area of 440,000 square meters (about 109 acres), and able to accommodate 1,000,000 people at one time. The place is very BIG!!! I couldn't catch a picture of the whole place on my camera. So make do with separate pictures of buildings instead.

I managed to catch some pictures of important buildings around the square.

National Museum of China
In the east of the Square is the National Museum of China which is a great treasure trove housing more than 3,000,000 precious articles which provide a vivid portrayal of Chinese history. In the National Museum of the Chinese Revolution there are displays of over 4,500 articles, including literature, pictures, drawings and sculptures. These depict the people's revolutions and movements to save China, which happened after the Opium War in 1840. (source)
Great Hall of the People
In the west of the Square is the Great Hall of the People which was built in 1959 and occupies a construction area of 170,000 square meters (42 acres). It is used for legislative and ceremonial activities by the People's Republic of China and the Communist Party of China. It functions as the People's Republic of China's parliament building.

Tiananmen - The entrance into the Forbidden City
At the entrance is a big portrait of Mao Zedong who is the first chairman of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and is greatly admired by the Chinese People.

Mao Zedong.
I recently read that Tiananmen Square was also famous for the massacre of locals in 1989. Hehe. You could read it further here.

The occasionally showcase of guards in uniform marching.
We walked several meters to the entrance of the Forbidden City. It was here where we had to wait while Ms Lili went to buy us entrance tickets. There were so many groups of tourists in the area that we chanced upon another group of tourists from Malaysia.

Everyone waiting for the tickets.
It was really, really hot. By then we unzipped our jackets. Below is a family who was in my group. I only remembered the kid's name which is Akmal. The only kid in the group surrounded by 11 adults.

Akmal was getting tired of walking around too much. LOL.
Imagine that the kid was only 3 years old but have the size of a 6 year old! He's one over-sized, big kid! His father is a CEO of some logistic company and the company sponsored the trip for his officials. There were 8 of them.

OK... coming up next is the Forbidden City.

Thankyou for reading!
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2 comments:

hcvvorld of Travels, Lifestyle and Photography said... [Reply]

memang cantik kan Tiananmen..i will be waiting for the Forbidden City post

Jard The Great said... [Reply]

@hcw... hehehe. thanks for your comment. tried commenting on ur blog but it didn't get through. nice pics at ur blog tho! awesome!