Day 3 (June 9): The National Grand Theatre (國家大劇院), Tian'anmen Square (天安門廣場), Forbidden City (紫禁城), and Jingshan Park (景山公園)

This is the second day of our Beijing adventure. The schedule was pretty full. The group was going to meet at 8am. That meant we needed to get up at 6:30am to go to the gym and have breakfast...

Our first stop is the National Grand Theatre or National Centre for the Performing Arts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Centre_for_the_Performing_Arts_%28China%29;http://www.chncpa.org/n16/welcome.html).





According to the tour guide, the theatre can host more than 5,000 people and have more than 100 washrooms. Some seats are 6 meters below the ground. In addition, people can evacuate in 6 minutes. The theatre has more than 100 sister theatres around the world. However, Beijingers are not too happy with the shape of the theatre. It looks like a grave. The theatre was designed by a French who had not had any experience with theatre design. This is his first experience.

After the theatre, we walked to the Tian'anmen Square (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square). There were lots of people at the square when we arrived. According to the tour guide, the square can entertain one million people. Red flags/bans are not allowed on the square. The guide also indicated that the square is full of undercover security staff.