Literally, Qianmen means "front gate." Once upon a time, it was the front gate to enter the city of Beijing. Now it's just a touristy-type place with a lot of traditional Chinese architecture.
Here's a picture of what used to be the second gate to get into Beijing. It's now the entrance to the modern shopping Qianmen.
Here I am! Melinda took this picture.
Here's what it looks like after you walk through the gate. Like I said, it's a big touristy-area. Cars aren't allowed on the street, so it's really nice. Still have to watch out for bicycles, though.
Here's what it looks like to the left. More traditional buildings with modern stores.
And to the right.
Here's a big lantern thing. They have these things in every Chinese restaurant I've ever been to in the states.
Here's a random street shot. It's kind of similar to the hutong that me and Collin went to.
Melinda and I just sort of walked around Qianmen. I asked her to show me some traditional Chinese things. We stopped into a shoe shop, actually. They some Chinese shoes there. Melinda pointed out these really small, pointy shoes. They look kind of like these.
Back in the day, they used to bind young girls' feet so they would stay tiny (I'm sure you've heard this somewhere). Anywho, their feet wouldn't grow properly and would end up being very small and deformed. Melinda said that her grandmother or her great grandmother (I can't remember which) has tiny feet and she can't walk very well because of it.
I read up on the foot binding thing (缠足, called "chanzu"), and it's pretty brutal. They would break the toes and the arches of the foot. After that, it's just like a corset for the foot. Wikipedia it. It's interesting.
We also went into some clothing shops that had traditional clothing. One clothing store had this statue. It shows the process of making clothes back in the day. It's kind of cool.
We also went into a souvenir shop. They had one section with a lot of beads with Chinese characters. I ended up getting myself a cell phone charm with my Chinese name on it. It's really cute.
In the back of the souvenir shop, this guy was being loud.
As it turns out, if you pay 10 kuai, you can look into his little instrument there and he'll tell you a story. He was singing the story and the thing that the people are looking into is also a big musical contraption. It was really entertaining! I should've gotten a video. Oh well.
After that souvenir shop, we went to a tea place. They gave us free samples, so that was awesome. It smelled really good, too. It had this at entrance. It looks like the teapot is hanging in the air! Melinda actually showed me that the water running out of the teapot covers what is holding the teapot up. But it looks like it's floating!
Melinda and I actually stayed out pretty late. We walked down the whole street. This is what it looked like at night. You can see the second gate at the end of the street.
We had to go back by the 2 gates on our way out of Qianmen. Here's the second gate in the dark. As you can see, it's pretty massive.
Here's the other side of the second gate (the side we came in).
And here's the first gate. I didn't get a picture of it in the daytime. My bad.
That was my adventure on Friday. I have Monday and Tuesday off this week, so perhaps I'll have more adventures to share.
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