Aug 7, 2002: (Day 5)

Tinnamen Square : This is the infamous public square known for the democracy uprising. It is also claimed as the largest public square in the world. Tinnamen Square has also the home of Chinese Parliament Building which is also known as the largest Parliamentary Building in the world. Here at this Square also lies the entrance to the Forbidden City and the People's Monument. This is a popular destination for millions of people from all over China and the world.

Forbidden City : Popularly known as the Imperial Palace of the Emperors of China. It is said that one million workers participated in building this huge complex but the same people and others were forbidden to enter it, hence the name Forbidden City.

Niujie Mosque : This beautiful Mosque is known to be 1000 years old and is located on Niujie street. Originally built in 996 AD during the Song Dynasty and later extended during the Ming Dynasty. It is a huge complex of typical Chinese architecture combined with  Islamic architecture. This mosque has a vast collection of old Quranic handwritten and print samples and Islamic artifacts. Almost everyone who visits Beijing pays a visit to this famous mosque. 

It is open for daily prayers. More than 700 people attend Friday prayers and thousands attend the Eid prayers and festivities. More than 20,000 Muslims live in the vicinity of this Mosque. Niujie Mosque serves the community needs such as family teaching, hajj classes, conducts marriages, offers family counseling, etc. 

It also has a school for children teaching Quran and Islamic studies for ages 3 to 15 years. This Masjid like others has a sprawling complex with Musalla, school facility, offices, meeting halls, social hall, etc. Imam Qazweeni & Imam Bukhari (not the Imam Bokhari of Sahih Bokhari) are believed to have migrated from West Asia and stayed at this mosque for quite sometime beginning around the 13th century AD. During their stay here, they made their contributions to the growth of Islam and the Muslim community in this area. As a gesture of respect for their contributions the Beijing Muslim community dedicated an area in the backyard of the Mosque for their graves. The Mosque now has a store offering Islamic gift items. The revenue generated from the store supports the Masjid operations.

From this spiritually uplifting visit to the Niujie Mosque, we headed to Silk Store and had a quick chat with Jason in the bus about silk and about life in China. In the Silk Store, we had a short and informative chat with Silk Weaver .  train station, we ran into a Before hitting the road to the street hawker and decided to have some fun with him.

Train to Hohhot : We skipped dinner today as we were scheduled to leave for Inner Mongolia. Originally all of us were scheduled to travel by train but due to some changes some of us were given a flight. The distance between Beijing and the City of Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, is about 500 miles. It takes about twelve hours to complete this journey by train. We left Beijing around 7 pm and reached Hohhot the following morning around 7 am.

Twelve of us left by flight and the rest of eight participants enjoyed the train journey. We had a comfortable air-conditioned cabin housing four people. The fare for this journey was a mere 244Y ($30). Each car was equipped with a modest bathroom and large windows for viewing beautiful rural Chinese landscape.

Many tourists prefer traveling by train to be able to see rural China. Our neighbors in the train were a group of tourists from Poland. We had a nice chat with a Polish Tourist .