It's a small world after all.

Ever since we started thinking about this move we have had Tiananmen Square as our starting point on Google Earth and now we have been there. Saturday we took the subway to see the ancient observatory which has stood for over 500 years and then headed for Tiananmen Square. The subway ride to the square was a little longer than was expected. We were caught in an ocean of Chinese on the subway and packed tight so we could not get off at either of the two stops. We had to ride until enough people got off a few stops later to get off, walk across the platform and get on going the other way. As soon as we exited the subway we saw the National Centre for the Performing Arts with its dome shaped building. After walking under the street through the tunnels they have for getting to the other side of the busy streets, we came out in front of the Great Hall of the People which is on the West side of the square. Across the road to the North of the square is the main gate to the Forbidden City. The National Museum of China is on the East side of the square. In the middle is the Monument to the Peoples Heroes. On the South of the square is the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. To the South of the mausoleum is the old outer Forbidden City gate and archery tower. We took the subway East a couple of stops and got off near where we were the night before on snack street. The exit we took opened up into a three story, city block size mall with all kinds of fancy shops. We did not buy anything or even go into any of the shops as it was all too expensive for us. There was plenty of restraunts inside the mall and after eating at one of the two KFC we went to one of the two Diary Queens and had some ice cream. While sitting there in the middle of this huge mall in a city of 15 million mostly Chinese our friends TJ and Jenni just happend to be walking by. Just like the ancient observatory that saw the city built around it had constants in the stars above revealing the vast size of the galaxy and the Earths relative small size, we too found it is a small world.