Day 17 - Beijing

The Forbidden City in Hue, Vietnam has been mostly destroyed by bombs and not rebuilt, so it was lovely to go through Beijing's that has been very well kept and restored. In fact various parts of it are under restoration now. We entered from the back entrance ie not the Tianenmen Sq entrance, and discovered that most people start at the other end. Therefore we spent our whole day there walking against a sea of people.
In the evening we had tickets to see the Beijing Philharmonic Orchestra. We went to a little restaurant for a quick bite before the show. It looked like it hadn't been open for long, and I'd say from the attention we received, that we were the first westerners to grace their tables! Pretty much everyone who worked there came out to take our order. Again we weren't sure whether everything had translated, but the food came and was lovely.
We had great seats for the Philharmonic, until seconds before it started. The people sitting next to us also had seats in the next row, but at the other end. They seemed to be one seat short and decided that they would share a seat...some of which was MY seat! hmmm....interesting. The performance had a young German violinist as the guest artist. He was very good...quite flamboyant, although could do with getting some good fitting clothes made in China!!
After the show, we tried to get a taxi to no avail. We realised we weren't really sure what part of town we were in, but I had a feeling we weren't too far from Tianenmen Sq. As there were plenty of people around, we decided to go for a walk and try and get a cab further along. We ended up in the square, where there were hundreds of people just wandering around, flying kites, taking photos and enjoying the balmy evening. With the square all lit up, it was a lovely way to spend our last evening in China.