It’s now Saturday and we started our day with a short van trip to Tiananmen Square.
Tiananmen Square is a city square in the centre of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen (‘Gate of Heavenly Peace’) located to its north, separating it from the Forbidden City. The square contains the Monument to the People’s Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China in the square on October 1, 1949; the anniversary of this event is still observed there. Tiananmen Square is within the top ten largest city squares in the world (880×500 m or 109 acres). It has great cultural significance as it was the site of several important events in Chinese history.
Outside China, the square is best known for the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, otherwise known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
When we arrived there were literally hundreds of people in line to visit the body of Chairman Mao, who lays embalmed in his mausoleum. It would have been interesting to see him but the line was too long and we didn’t have the time.
The photos below are a mix of this visit plus a few extras when Eduardo & I went back to the square a couple days later on our own when there were less people around.
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