Out in the Cold for Two Days

Sorry for the belatedness of this post, but the past few days have been kind of full. That or I'm being lazy, but we'll go with a full schedule for now. Now I'm sure, as with the Great Wall, you've all been on the edges of your hypothetical seats waiting to hear about the Forbidden City. So, like last time, I'll begin at the beginning.
IT WAS SOOOO COOOOOL!!! Ok, so that's not really the beginning, but it was. We got up and hopped on a bus that took us to the National Museum. They've got a fantastic collection of all kinds of things from China's history; I put some of my favorites on Flickr. I took most of the pictures pretty close-up, so it's hard to get and idea of scale... We spent the morning there and tried to see as much of it as possible, which was easy enough because most of the signs were in Chinese :P We had lunch at the museum's restaurant, then took the subway to the northern part of Tiananmen Square. Walking under that portrait of Mao was pretty awesome, especially when you can see the gate doors close up, with their red paint and gold studs, and the rooftops of the Forbidden City on the other side. There were two other gates to walk through before we got to the main gate of the Forbidden City proper, and going through that last one was literally like taking a step back in time. All the people selling stuff weren't in here, and there were just a couple tourist groups in this massive courtyard. Like I've mentioned before, China has this weird dynamic of really small spaces and enormous ones, the latter of which was definitely more prominent here. We checked out a little hall off to the side that had all kinds of old pottery in it, somewhat hidden back in some trees out a side gate. The detail of the City is beyond belief. Each square foot of ceiling space was decorated with a gold dragon motif, each one entirely hand painted. And this same pattern (and variations thereof) was repeated throughout the entire City. Excellent craftsmanship, too; the courtyard, walls and pillars were stone, but everything else was wood, and built using no nails. You could really feel the history of the place, and it wasn't too hard to imagine robed eunuchs bustling all over the place to do the emperor's bidding.
So that was all of Saturday. Needless to say, when I got back I was extremely tired, hence my not posting. Then the next day it was sort of a reverse schedule; we took taxis to an open-air market in the morning, and had class in the afternoon. The marketplace was a great experience, especially following Pong Laoshi around. He's got an eye for authentic antiques, and he drives a hard bargain when he wants to buy something. I learned a thing or two, and got some pretty good deals on a few things. The walking away tactic works especially well :P
Which brings us to today. This morning was class, again, then a lunch break and calligraphy. A calligraphy artist from the university showed us some basic stuff and then we practiced. I put his work and mine up on Flickr, so you can see the difference between a professional and an amateur XD Then after dinner we boarded up on the bus and went to an acrobatics show! If you saw the gymnastics at the Olympics, you've got something of an idea of what it was like. Some of the stunts were phenomenal, I felt like a kid watching them do some of the stuff. There was juggling, tightrope, floor acrobatics, people-juggling (yeah, this one was insane), Chinese yo-yo (two sticks with a string between them, and a drum that's spun on the string; you'd know it if you saw it), balance acts... There were a few more, and they were all spectacular. Unfortunately they didn't allow photography or filming, so I don't have any pictures for that one :(
Tomorrow is brush painting, so there may be a few new pics. Zai jian!