South of Tiananmen Square is a gate called Qianmen. Qianmen is beautiful and looks like a temple. It was an important structure during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644, but specifially the 1400s, yeah this thing is old!), as it guarded the direct entry to the Imperial City.
Still an honored piece of Beijing history, the gate is well maintained, and as you can see from the street lamp's many cameras, it is well monitored.
The three characters in the photo above say Zhengyangmen, the traditional name of Qianmen.
We were allowed to go up into the gate and have a look around. The guard told us that it is not always open to foreigners, but since this was during the holiday week, foreigners were allowed in today. I have no idea if that is true, but either way we paid 20kuai and got to tour around.
From Qianmen, this is the view of the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. Mao's body is on display for public viewing (though there are rumor's that it is a wax sculpture).
I'm not sure why, but I was consistently surprised by the amount of blue used on the temples and gates. Delicate and extremely detailed, these structures are beautifully maintained.
The photo above is Tian'anmen Square. It's a big, open, public space this is hard to capture in a photo. I mostly ended up taking pictures of strangers either posing for photos or taking their own photos.
Children with China flags. I went to the square during a big national holiday, so most people around Tian'anmen were probably tourists, too, from other parts of China. Beijing is extremely popular as a tourist destination for Chinese people because it is the capital and there is a serious amount of history to tour.
Tian'anmen is across the street (a 12 lane road!) from the Forbidden City. This family is posing for their own photo, but I snapped one, too. They look perfect.
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