Kathleen's blog

Saturday, April 18
Since I am writing at around seven at night, I feel like our morning activities were done so long ago. We went to the Summer Palace of Dowager Empress Cixi, and I was impressed with all the power that she held in the government as well as in the country itself. Li Jun told us all about her history and role in China during that time period, and how she basically controlled everything behind a puppet emperor that she had appointed, usually one of her relatives. I can’t really help but wonder whether or not some people are doing that now in some countries of the world, and we just don’t see it.
The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square were probably the most tiring and yet the most interesting sites that we went to today though. I was amazed at the size of the Forbidden City. I had known that it was big, but I had never seen it up close or in person. I was very upset that my camera battery had died near the end of our trip through the Forbidden City, since there were definitely many things that were worth taking pictures of in both sites. At Tiananmen Square I was somewhat surprised at the size also, and I was somewhat disappointed that I could not get a picture of Mao’s portrait or of many other things around there. It was definitely an experience that was worth the walking and such, because I feel like these two sites are very important to Chinese culture and history.
Even though I am pretty tired from all of that walking and trekking though historical landmarks, it was definitely worth it in my opinion.