You are kindly requested not to exit your room barefooted

I'm now two full days in Beijing. My free Sunday and one work day.

Sunday was a down day. I was depressed or culture shocked or maybe still just jet lagged even after a week on this side of the world.

I did get myself out of the hotel for a couple of walking tours of the neighborhood. The geographical center of Beijing is the Forbidden City. My hotel is just off the southeast corner of the wall enclosing that vast space. One of the several restaurants in the hotel is called the Red Wall Cafe because it looks out at the red wall that surrounds the Forbidden City. One block west is the gate to some parks that then lead up to the Meridian Gate. The trick being what comprises a "block".

The scale of this place is a little hard to get sorted out. I went walking Sunday, went about 1/2 kilometer west and got to a gateway in the red wall. Thinking I had made it to the entrance to the parks I turned in and headed what felt like a long ways north, probably a kilometer. Nothing that looked like the Forbidden City. I ended up looping around back to the hotel.

Well it turns out that I had gotten only about half way to the gate I should have taken. And it's the Tiananmen, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, a huge hundred foot tall structure with an enormous banner of Mao Zedong's face on it. Not something that could have been missed if I hadn't been a zombie.

My compadres both arrived at midnight last night after their own airport adventures. Tonight after we let our students loose, we struck out for a little stroll down to see Tiananmen Square, the largest public square in the world. The size of the space is ... stunning. It's a rectangular space that's 1/2 kilometer by over 3/4 kilometer. About 80% just open space paved with concrete pavers. We walked more or less around the perimeter. At 7pm or so on a weeknight, there were thousands of people out walking or taking pictures. And thousands didn't crowd the place, far from it in fact.

I managed to get out tonight without my camera so have no pictures of the square. I'll get back to do that but pictures aren't going to convey the scale of the place.

Oh, and about the title of the post. I was idly flipping thru the booklet that lists the hotel services and came on the "safety and security" section. In there are the kinds of things you'd expect. Lock your door, no animals, no explosives allowed etc. And there tucked in the "Prohibitions" list is ... You are kindly requested not to exit your room barefooted. Um. OK.