A bit of background - not on Tiananmen Square but on what had happened to me immediately prior to visiting Tiananmen Square................
I have a mildly annoying (but not very dangerous) health condition that means that occasionally my blood pressure can drop suddenly. It doesn't happen very often and usually when it does I can lie down, drink some water and rest until I feel better again. However occasionally it happens at a very inconvenient time. For example, while at work at Deakin University in front of a class - terrible timing! Fortunately I was able to dismiss the class when I started to feel ill, so there were only a few students left when I got to the fainting stage and they had hung around because they were concerned about how pale I had become.
One of those inconvenient times arose while we were standing in a moving subway train in Beijing. I could feel myself becoming faint, but there was definitely no space in the train to lie down, so I awkwardly crouched down in my spot and waited for the train to stop. As soon as I stood up to get off the train I knew I wasn't going to be able to make it far. So I ended up laying sideways on the ground of a metro station (which is surprisingly clean for the number of people who pass through there, but still not ideal) and waited to regain enough strength to get back to our hotel. I felt pretty conspicuous.
We made it back, but unfortunately we needed to pack up and move hotels. David was in Beijing before my arrival doing some work. He was staying in a lovely Marriott with a pretty cool view of a Ming Dynasty city wall.......
But now that our holiday had begun (ie - we were now picking up the tab for the room) I had organised to move us to a less glamorous and much cheaper Novotel with a view of a hospital wall. David did all of the packing and organising and shuffled me into a taxi. He helped me out at the other end and I lay down again as David organised our room. I did more lying around and started to feel annoyed that I was lying around while there was an entire amazing city outside to explore. So, when I had started to feel slightly better I told David that I wanted to stop lying around and do something. He disagreed with my craziness, but I persisted. So David suggested Tiananmen Square which wasn't very far from the hotel and not a very challenging place to get around.
I was ok, a bit slower than normal, but I started to get back to normal as the day continued. However, in the photos below in Tiananmen Square I still look a bit ill. The irony of this is that at every major sight we visited in China we were stopped multiple times by Chinese people who wanted pictures taken with us. Apparently we look exotic. Ha! I'm sure some of those photos taken of me in Tiananmen Square would have turned out pretty awful. I don't think I was a good representative of western female - aren't they supposed to be white, why does she look green??
Tiananmen Square is one of the largest public squares in the world. Chairman Mao used to watch parades of up to a million people in this space.
There were some workers constructing a giant lantern in the square. They were doing this for the National Day holiday which was coming up in a couple of weeks. I think those uniforms are a little Oompa Loompa-like. Check out the bamboo scaffolding. We have seen this type of scaffolding before in Hong Kong. It looks slightly scary to me, but apparently is safe and has lots of benefits.
Another gate photo. I took this photo on a different day as we passed by Tiananmen Square. What I really wanted to capture was the view of the sky. We had amazing weather on most of our days in China - mild temperatures and a little bit of wind that blew the smog away. Look at that clear blue sky. Beautiful!
I have a mildly annoying (but not very dangerous) health condition that means that occasionally my blood pressure can drop suddenly. It doesn't happen very often and usually when it does I can lie down, drink some water and rest until I feel better again. However occasionally it happens at a very inconvenient time. For example, while at work at Deakin University in front of a class - terrible timing! Fortunately I was able to dismiss the class when I started to feel ill, so there were only a few students left when I got to the fainting stage and they had hung around because they were concerned about how pale I had become.
One of those inconvenient times arose while we were standing in a moving subway train in Beijing. I could feel myself becoming faint, but there was definitely no space in the train to lie down, so I awkwardly crouched down in my spot and waited for the train to stop. As soon as I stood up to get off the train I knew I wasn't going to be able to make it far. So I ended up laying sideways on the ground of a metro station (which is surprisingly clean for the number of people who pass through there, but still not ideal) and waited to regain enough strength to get back to our hotel. I felt pretty conspicuous.
We made it back, but unfortunately we needed to pack up and move hotels. David was in Beijing before my arrival doing some work. He was staying in a lovely Marriott with a pretty cool view of a Ming Dynasty city wall.......
But now that our holiday had begun (ie - we were now picking up the tab for the room) I had organised to move us to a less glamorous and much cheaper Novotel with a view of a hospital wall. David did all of the packing and organising and shuffled me into a taxi. He helped me out at the other end and I lay down again as David organised our room. I did more lying around and started to feel annoyed that I was lying around while there was an entire amazing city outside to explore. So, when I had started to feel slightly better I told David that I wanted to stop lying around and do something. He disagreed with my craziness, but I persisted. So David suggested Tiananmen Square which wasn't very far from the hotel and not a very challenging place to get around.
I was ok, a bit slower than normal, but I started to get back to normal as the day continued. However, in the photos below in Tiananmen Square I still look a bit ill. The irony of this is that at every major sight we visited in China we were stopped multiple times by Chinese people who wanted pictures taken with us. Apparently we look exotic. Ha! I'm sure some of those photos taken of me in Tiananmen Square would have turned out pretty awful. I don't think I was a good representative of western female - aren't they supposed to be white, why does she look green??
Tiananmen Square is one of the largest public squares in the world. Chairman Mao used to watch parades of up to a million people in this space.
Statue to the People
David in front of Qianmen Gate, which was a gate in Beijing's old city wall. However most of the wall has now been knocked down.
Looking across Tiananmen Square to The Gate of Heavenly Peace. This was the entrance to the Imperial City. The original building was constructed in 1420 (but has been destroyed several times).
There were some workers constructing a giant lantern in the square. They were doing this for the National Day holiday which was coming up in a couple of weeks. I think those uniforms are a little Oompa Loompa-like. Check out the bamboo scaffolding. We have seen this type of scaffolding before in Hong Kong. It looks slightly scary to me, but apparently is safe and has lots of benefits.
Another gate photo. I took this photo on a different day as we passed by Tiananmen Square. What I really wanted to capture was the view of the sky. We had amazing weather on most of our days in China - mild temperatures and a little bit of wind that blew the smog away. Look at that clear blue sky. Beautiful!
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