Tienanmen Square

I'm guessing that all tours of Beijing start with Tienanmen Square, right? Well, mine did so in the spirit of chronological order, that's what we'll start with.
My guide and I entered past the Zhengyangmen gate...or front gate which was built in 1419 during the Ming Dynasty.
Then into Tienanmen, which is the biggest square in the world...this picture does nothing to capture the full scope of how large the square is, so I looked up the stats - 440,000 square meters - about 6 football fields...holds 1 million people. As we were walking through I purposely did not ask about the 1989 massacre. About halfway through our walk through the square she said "you're not asking the question most people ask." Her view was that the government had reacted a bit strongly, but they were doing it to protect the people as a whole. An example she sited was that a young girl protesting had committed suicide for her cause, and that the government had to protect others from doing the same.Did you notice the snow in the square? I asked my guide when it has snowed (I lucked out with sunny skies for my time there!). She matter-of-factly replied - "the premiere ordered it to snow 2 days ago." When she saw my reaction she further explained that they had been in the midst of a 300 day drought so the premiere needed to do that for the farmers. I explained that we sometimes had droughts in the US, but the President never ordered changes in weather patterns, I think she thought this was a bit strange.
Not sure what Mao would think of me covering up his picture ;-) Go through the gate and you are at the entrance to the Forbidden City so stay tuned for more pictures!