Tian'an men Square

It's massive.  It's the third largest city square in the world and it was made to hold one million people.

Being there in the center of it all was the first time I got this really overpowering sense of government.   All of the buildings are huge, larger than life, giving you this almost powerless and helpless feeling.  It helps that when you look toward the Forbidden City, you'll see a giant framed portrait of Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People's Republic of China.  It's a little strange seeing a portrait hanging outside the Forbidden City.  It's almost as if he is being worshipped like a god.

To give you a sense of how big everything felt, I once counted the number of lanes on one of the busier streets in Beijing: 8 lanes, one way.  That's 16 lanes wide.











When in China...