first of all, tian'anmen square was gigantic. seeing it on tv or even from our bus didn't compare to actually standing in the middle of it. tomorrow marks a big anniversary of the student protests so it's probably a good thing we went today. next to the square is the beautiful (and enormous) great hall of the people (which is where the orchestra played on its last tour of china several years ago) and on the other side, the national museum of china (also enormous).
from the center of the square
when we crossed the street and entered the forbidden city, i was pretty much speechless. although i haven't been to every single country in the world, i have seen many amazing and lavish castles/estates/palaces. i have to say that this one makes all the others look like doll houses in comparison. no matter how many gates we went through or courtyards we crossed, there seemed to be another, even more grandiose structure ahead of us. by the way, the forbidden city covers 2,350,000 square feet and contains 9,999 rooms. even the "garden" is more like a huge forest. i could write so much more about it but will leave you a link if you want to read more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City
w/ pauline and her 2 cousins
one of the outer courtyards
one of the many throne rooms in the palace
all that walking certainly worked up our appetites and pauline's cousin took us to the best peking duck restaurant in beijing. i haven't had peking duck very often and when i had it, i never got very much (usually at some big banquet w/ many people). this time, we had 2 ducks for 4 people (the other 2 are vegetarians). it was INCREDIBLE and the taste actually stayed w/ me through the entire concert! i seriously ate until i was about to burst and then went back to the hotel to rest a little before the concert.
fresh duck sliced to perfection
dave bilger (principal trumpet), jeff khaner (principal flute), udi bar-david (cello) and i attended a pre-concert reception w/ people from our corporate sponsor, astra zeneca, and several of their clients. we got to meet some very nice people but had to run off quickly to get ready for the concert.
after a rousing egmont overture, our soloist lang lang gave a virtuosic performance of the grieg piano concerto followed by a beautiful encore. tchaikovsky "pathetique" symphony received a wonderful response in the 2nd half and we ended w/ the beautiful valse triste by sibelius.
after the concert
once again, it was great to see many of our donors in the audience as well as after the concert. i hope many more of you are able to come along on future tours. it's definitely a lot of fun.
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