Tiananmen Square, Beijing's greatest landmark and historic sight is located in the city square in the center of Beijing. It was originally called the Tiananmen Gate, which is the Gate protecting the Forbidden City. It was damaged during war and the Tiananmen Square was built, four times bigger than the original size.
The day began after we finally got ready and braced ourselves for the cold freezing weather. It was not as cold in the sun as it was in the shade (duh).
With the help of the hotel and TripAdvisor (so helpful when it comes to traveling abroad and hotel stays), we were able to use the subway effectively and without any trouble! It was a bit confusing at first and I can see why it would be more confusing if there were more people but not many people were out so we were lucky. To use the subway, you have to first buy a ticket. Wherever you go, it is RMB$2 (USD$0.33), whether you are going within the first ring or from the first ring to the sixth.
They have these machines above ^ but its so much easier to have yuan bills and to hand RMB$4 to the lady standing at the booth in exchange for two tickets than pressing so many buttons and struggling with inserting the bills and the lady has change! ^____^
We went from Fuchengmen and changed to the red line to end up at Tiananmen West. The view from when we exited the subway was phenomenal. All the leaves have fallen from the trees but the trees were still so pretty. I can't imagine what it would look like during Autumn.
Once we got closer to Tiananmen Square, there were checkpoints everywhere. This is the first checkpoint we encountered. Maybe because of the recent van-bombing incident, they were extra careful in letting sketchy characters near without inspecting first. This lead to long and lengthy lines. This particular one did not have the metal detectors but the ones across the street does.
We made it past the checkpoints! It was amazing to stand there looking at the Tiananmen Square right in front of me as the pro-democracy movement that ended in the death of thousands of civilians and the declaration of martial law in Beijing. So much history on the ground I stood on.
Besides the guards and the barricades, literally the first thing you notice is the size. It's HUGE. It looks small in pictures and on TV but compare the place to the people. The place is ginormous, which is probably why this is one of the biggest public squares in the world. There were also many obvious under cover police. I don't really know if they were not undercover but were just police in plain clothes or really bad at being undercover.. Either way, there were many police around the area pulling people over to check their documents and belongings.
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