We had actually driven by it the night before.
And we saw some other interesting things in that area the night before as well.
The moon looked big (full moon) and reddish (due to the haze).
I kept seeing little kids stuffed in the front of bikes and scooters.
And here's a long exposure shot out my hotel window at night.
I thought this door on our hotel's main floor looked cool.
As we neared The Forbidden City on Saturday morning, we saw some interesting flower art.
The entrance to The Forbidden City is flanked by flower arrangements, too.
The Forbidden City was built from 1406-1420 when the capital moved from Nanjing (down by Shanghai) to Beijing (formerly called "Peking"). The city is "forbidden" because one was only allowed to visit there upon invitation from the emperor.
But invitation or no, in we went.
Here is looking back out the entrance, where you can see the huge flower pot at Tiananmen Square (which we visit a little later).
By contrast, here is the view through the next building. Those two pictures, of course, look almost identical, and it turns out that much of the Forbidden City consists of huge plazas surrounded by awesome buildings that are all designed very similarly.
I love the intricate colors under the eves.
I also enjoy the curved roof lines.
And the cute kids are fun to watch.
A couple of areas had a pretty water feature.
Here is a panorama of the above scene, showing how many buildings are all around.
And I always enjoy the almost-right translations on the signs.
And I love even more the awesome names they give to stuff.
- "Hall of Supreme Harmony",
- "Gate of Manifest Virtue",
- "Gate of Divine Might",
- "East Glorious Gate",
- "Hall of Military Eminence",
- "Palace of Heavenly Purity",
- "Hall of Mental Cultivation" and
- "Palace of Tranquil Longevity," among others.
One after another, there kept being huge squares flanked by massive, impressive buildings. (And swarmed by people, since it was still Golden Week when everyone in China gets the week off).
Here's the inside of one of the buildings.
And here's everyone trying to get a picture of that.
There were vats all around whose purpose was to hold water to use in case of fire. In the winter, the water could freeze, so sometimes they built fires under them. Hopefully none of those ever caught the place on fire, cuz that would be ironic...
There were many selfies going on in the area.
And other posed pictures. Here's a girl in ethnic garb.
And here's a more typical random modern Chinese girl.
The symbol of the dragon was only supposed to be used by the emperor. Because, dibs.
The corners of the roofs often had this same series of dragons with a guy on a dragon at the front. I could swear it was Santa's sleigh with dragon reindeer, and Santa riding Rudolf the Red-Flamed Dragon at the front.
Here's another one.
A small museum housed dishes from various dynasties. This bowl was from about 1500 A.D.
And this one was from the 1700s, when yellow became the new white!
And there were a few cool statues around, like this turtle.
The last section we came to was where the emperors lived, and it was finally one full of trees! (These two seem to be giving each other a hug).
The bamboo reminded me of my grandpa's house in Oregon that had bamboo along the side yard. We used to harvest some to use for Boy Scout projects.
Of course, his smart phone seemed a tad out of place.
24 emperors lived in The Forbidden City between 1420 when it was finished and 1912 when the last emperor yielded control to the new Republic of China government. It eventually became open to the public.
As we exited The Forbidden City, there was a cool building over on the mountain.
These cute kids got traditional Chinese hats from the gift shop.
I love this shot from the outside of The Forbidden City. In fact, this might be my favorite picture from the whole trip. (You might want to click on it to see a full sized version.)
Outside there were some couples posing for wedding pictures.
This gal apparently had comfy boots under her traditional dress.
Since we exited the opposite end of The Forbidden City, we had a long walk up a tree-lined street to get back to where we started.
There were some cute traditional scenes as we walked along. I like how this place has the misty Chinese mountain scene, stone dragon guardians, a Chinese flag, and an old bicycle.
In an underpass near the subway station, we saw this ethnic family, who looks especially concerned and anxious for someone's arrival.
Across the street from the entrance to The Forbidden City is Tiananmen Square.
It was decked out with huge flower balls and flower pillars and stuff.
They also had this monument to Thomas Edison, which seemed thoughtful of them. (Not really, of course).
Speaking of flowers, this is unquestionably the largest flower pot I've ever seen.
Next, we joined up with Steve Nickle again and visited The Temple of Heaven (天壇, Tiāntán), where the emperor used to go for spiritual activity. It was built during the same years (1406-1420) as The Forbidden City.
Steve gave as an overview of what we were going to see, and some interesting things to look out for.
And, in case there was any question, absolutely nothing is allowed there.
For some reason I always like the purple flowers wherever I go.
The long approach is flanked by a huge park on both sides.
The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (祈年殿) has three levels of stairs and three roofs.
Each of the 3 sections of stairs has a slab that tells a story.
That building was my favorite part.
There were also several other awesome buildings around, with different colored roofs.
I loved the juxtaposition of this young lady's outfit with her rose gold iPhone.
I like how the roof sort of zooms out at you here.
Supposedly one can call from one part of the Echo Wall and hear it on the other side of an intervening building.
Do you like my hat?
This picture was inspired by my dad's photo of the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington, with help from a Native American statue.
Like The Forbidden City, this had the Santa's Sleigh-looking dragons.
The Circular Mound Altar (圜丘坛) has a center stone that is very popular for taking pictures.
It reminded me of my brother waiting for an hour to take a picture at the 4 Corners point where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona all meet.
I guess in some ways, we're all the same.
I loved how cute this little girl was taking a picture of her parents.
On the way back out of the park, there was this amazing line of trees that goes off to infinity, but a road that turns abruptly. There's probably a deep message in there somewhere.
We saw these ethnic dancing ladies posing for pictures on our way out.
This is a sign in front of a urinal saying, "One small step for man, One giant leap for civilization," or something to that effect (basically asking you to stand close enough not to miss).
Somehow they've made this car into a 4-door!
I love that this bicycle has eyes!
These yellow city bicycles are everywhere. Apparently you get an app that lets you unlock one wherever you find it, then you ride it to wherever (for a tiny sum) and lock it up again, and it's ready for whoever else needs one. I think it has cellular built into the locking mechanism so the apps can know where all the available bikes are. And no charge for extra passengers.
That evening we dropped by "The Silk Market" to do some shopping. The place was fairly modern, kind of like a mall, but it still had the old market feel, where everyone aggressively tried to market to you, and you had to haggle aggressively to get a good deal on stuff. I bought some T-shirts, fans, headphones and some chopsticks.
When I texted my siblings to say why I was my way to China, one of them asked, "Why are you going to China?" I replied, "Because I'm low on chopsticks." Kelsi chimed in with "^^^Truth." After explaining why I was really going, I added, "But we do indeed have a haggard assortment of mismatched chopsticks that makes eating ice cream quite untoward. I ask you!"
That night we did our first subway ride. Eric and Steve (both Chinese speakers) figured things out, while Merlin played a more "supervisory role" (no idea what's going on).
And that was the extent of our sightseeing in and around Beijing.
In the next episode, we take a high-speed train down south to Changzhou.
Next episode: Changzhou
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