The Gate of Heavenly Peace?

Since I hadn't yet had an opportunity to fully explore Tiananmen Square, I decided to accompany 5 other girls to the square last Friday. I later regretted this decision after some sort of whiny-bitch-fight broke out amongst two of them. Ladies, I thought we were past this after we graduated from high school. The rest of the time was spent awkwardly talking to a group of three of them, or the other group of two. 

Aside from this unfortunate scenario, Tiananmen is quite the sight. I might have had more time to enjoy it if I hadn't been dragged into to innumerable pictures with Chinese tourists, which I have painstakingly recounted for you below.

(华: is the average Chinese tourist, M: is me)

In English:

       华: Hi, width me kin you hit a pitchers? 

       M: Oh, you want picture? (cue overly-flamboyant hand motion miming picture-taking)

       华: Yah! Picture, ok, I give friend hit pitcher.

Picture taken.

In Chinese:

       M: 照片好不好看？由于我们在，所以这张照片一定很漂亮，对不对？

             (How's the picture look? Since we're in it, it's absolutely beautiful, right?)

       华: 你会说中文吧？

             (You can speak Chinese?)

       M: 再见！

             (Bye!)

It's always fun to mess with a fellow tourist. Enough chit-chat.... enjoy some photos. 

the square spans a massive area,

right across from the forbidden city

there were two massive screens on either side

of the big pointy monument

the big pointy monument (back side)

Monument to the People's Heroes (?)

the formidable volunteer security force

2nd from left in the right-most line, staring me down

last guy: fail. 

statue by the Maosoleum (tee-hee)

a big awesome-looking museum.

we went there later, but was incredibly boring.