Forbidden City

The day started with an excellent breakfast buffet of Chinese dumplings, rice soup, fresh fruit, lox, smoked fish, chocolate croissants, coffee... No wonder I'm gaining weight on this trip. Then we went to Tiananmen Square and practiced "boggling" (Nick's word for bargaining and haggling). My first success was a Chairman Mao watch for 40 Yuan, down from an initial asking price of Y300. Nick also picked up some really excellent "rattlesnake rocks"--two magnets that you toss in the air and they click together with a rattling noise.
Then we walked around in the Forbidden City, where we learned that the the little figures on the ends of the roof line denote the prestige of the building. Nine figures is for the emperor. The nine figures, in order are the dragon, the phoenix, a lion, heavenly steed, heavenly seahorse, then four mythical animals with complicated Chinese names. Flanking these figures is an immortal riding on a phoenix at the front and a dragon at the rear.
The highlight for many of us was the beautiful garden in the Forbidden City. The tree branches were twisted and other trees and knotty trunks.