Beijing The Forbidden City (Saturday, August 18th, 2018)

The Forbidden City of Beijing was built from 1406 - 1420.  It was built on 180 acres, consists of 800 buildings and contains 9,999 ½ rooms, because nine is the "lucky" number of emperors. 

It is surrounded by the Imperial City, which is the gateway to the Forbidden City and is where the governmental offices were, and where the emperor would meet with common people. 

From the Imperial City, we could see the Jingshaw Park Pagoda that we visited on our first day in Beijing.

 In the Imperial City, we crossed the mote that surrounded the Forbidden City.

In Chinese culture, 10 is the highest number, and is only suitable for God, but since the emperor thought he was the son of the God, he believed that he was worthy of the number 9. As we entered both the imperial city and the forbidden city, there were huge doors, each with 81 knobs on them (9 across by 9 high). Another way that the emperor showed his power to the people. 

The imperial city was quite pretty, with trees and flowers, etc., but as we entered the Forbidden City, we noticed that it had a brick floor (15 layers thick), it had no trees, no flowers, nothing homey at all. This was for security reasons. The floor was so thick that no one could dig through it, and there was nothing at all in the forbidden city that an assassin could hide behind. It was a very plain, boring, almost depressing environment. I couldn’t image being a child of the emperor having to grow up like that. 

Between the Imperial City and the Forbidden City, we went through the Gate of Harmony. As we entered the Forbidden City, we noticed that there were small animals on each corner of the roofs. The more animals, the more important the person who lives there. So the Emperor always had 9 animals on each corner, but once in a while, he would throw in 10 (because he could). 

The forbidden city contained everything that the emperor and his family needed to live. It had the family residence, a library, a school, etc. It even had a residence for the concubines of the Emperor. 

This is residence of the concubines.  

Concubines were young women who were given to the emperor by the woman family in hopes of elevating the families status.  If the Emperor was not able to have a boy with the empress, a boy would be chosen from the sons of the concubines (the emperor's mistresses) to be the next reigning emperor. 

The buildings in the Forbidden City are beautiful, but the surroundings are so stark!

The Forbidden City is currently undergoing significant renovations with all of the floor tiles being replaced.

These marble dragon heads were "down spouts" allowing water to drain from the walled courtyards.

The thrown of the emperor.

The movie, “The Last Emperor” is the only movie ever filmed in the Forbidden City, and it is about the last emperor of China. He became emperor when he was three, and was the son of one of the concubines that later became known in China as the Dragon Lady. She used her son (the last emperor) as a puppet, ruling the country from the back seat.

When we emerged from the Forbidden City, we were once again in the Imperial City (which surrounds the Forbidden City), where we could once again enjoy the beauty of the gardens.

The Forbidden City was massive and stark, and no where that I would ever want to live.  It is hard to imagine being so fearful of assassins that you would force yourself and your family into such a gloomy existence.  It was very interesting to see, and even more interesting to reflect upon.  It shows me that money and power definitely don't always equate to happiness.

Beijing Tiananmen Square (Saturday, August 18th, 2018)

Our tours of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City was a combined walking tour, so before we left Jason (tour director) warned us of how much walking would be involved.  I thought it was really nice of him to do, so we all wore our good walking shoes, and no one backed out.  We had a full group for our big walk. 

We got to Tiananmen Square right at lunch time, so the crowds were minimal and the walk was enjoyable. It was also a cloudy day, so it was nice and cool (comparatively speaking). There was a lot of security to get into the square. The lines to get in were very long, but since we were with a group, they checked our guides credentials and let the rest of us bypass the security lines (woo hoo!).  Since Steve and I had already been through this security check on accident (see Lost in Beijing post) we were glad to not have to go through it again.

Tiananmen Square is the largest public square in the world, holding half a million people during times of public celebration. The square's Gate of Heavenly Peace was once used as a staging ground for imperial edicts and by Mao Zedong himself to declare the founding of the People's Republic in 1949.  It is surrounded by four buildings, one on each side. 

The National Museum of China is the second largest museum in the world, following the Louvre in France. It is five stories high and takes about five days to thoroughly enjoy. 

The Mao Mausoleum houses the remains of Mao Zedong , the founder of the People's Republic of China. It is open each morning for the public to pay their respects to this great leader, but typically the line to get in will circle the building three times.



In the middle of Tiananmen Square stands a large monument to honor all of the people who helped to liberate China. Each memorial day a big celebration is held at this monument.



Across from the National Museum of China is the Great Hall of the People. This is where the Chinese Congress convenes for several months of the year. When congress is not working, this building is used for concerts and other events. The next scheduled event at this venue is the musical “Cats”, which will be here in September.

The grounds around Tiananmen Square are elaborately groomed.  Not something that comes to mind when I think of Tiananmen Square.

 On the final side of Tiananmen Square is the National Flag Pole where a celebration is performed every morning and every night. In the morning at sunrise the flag is raised, and in the evening at sunset it is lowered. As we were doing the tour we realized this was the commotion we saw a few days earlier with the huge crowds at the square. The people were gathering to watch the lowering of the flag. Once the flag is raised in the morning, it is guarded all day by three guards. One from the Navy, one from the Air force, and one from the Army/Marines. The guards of the flag have to be six feet tall. It is an honor for them to do this.  Behind the National Flag is a large picture of Mao Tse Tung, hanging at the entrance to the Forbidden City. This picture is repainted every six months and weighs two tons. Mao Tse Tung ruled China from 1949 until his death in 1976. He was the first chairman of the People’s Republic of China.

When we finished our tour in Tiananmen Square, we used a huge under ground corridor to cross a road from the square to the Forbidden City.

On the final side of the square, behind the National Flag Pole is the entrance to the Forbidden City, with a large picture of Chairman Mao.

When people hear the words Tiananmen Square the thing that comes to mind for most of us is the 1989 uprisings and student protests.  But today the square is a very peaceful, busy public square used for celebrations and gatherings. 

Lost in Beijing (Tuesday, August 14th, 2018)

I did some research before we left home, and knew that there were a couple of parks just on the other side of the Forbidden City, so after lunch we headed that direction. We walked toward the Forbidden City, then turned right and walked along the walls of the city. The first park called Jingshan Park was just past the Forbidden City. We paid the entry fee of 10 RMB each (which is a little less than $1.50 ).  The park was beautiful and had a large pagoda at the top of the hill that overlooked the city of Beijing and the Forbidden City. 

There are a few steps to climb to get to the pagoda.

But the views from the top were definitely worth it!

The view of the Forbidden City.

Oh, the crowds!

When we left Jingshan park, we left through the opposite entrance, walked about two blocks further away from our hotel and came to the next park called Beihai Park. Again, we paid the 10 RMB each to enter this park. 

We walked through Beihai Park, enjoying the beautiful lake and lotus gardens, as well as the white pagoda, that we can see from our hotel, then decided to walk along the other side of the Forbidden city as we made our way back to the hotel. 

As we were walking, we realized that we seemed to be in a very military area of the city, and the streets that the map showed didn’t actually go through and were secured by guards, so we kept walking, and kept walking and kept walking. 

We walked way beyond the end of the Forbidden City, and still there was no way to turn left to head back to the hotel. We finally came upon a street that went through, so we took a left and followed it. Before we knew it, we were at some sort of security check point. Everyone was getting out ID’s. Steve and I looked at each other, knowing that our passports were locked in the hotel safe, and wondered what we were going to do. It would be several miles to turn around and retrace our steps to get back to the hotel, so we both pulled out our Arizona drivers licenses and continued on. We handed the security guard our driver’s licenses and smiled nicely. He studied them pretty carefully and then let us through. We sent our bags through the scanner and continued on. 

When we got through security, we realized that we were in Tiananmen Square. This certainly wasn’t where we intended to be, but it was fun! 

There were huge crowds and lots of police everywhere. It looked like there was going to be some sort of event, so we waited around for a while, but nothing seemed to be happening, so we finally continued on our way. 

The police gear is ready to go.  

By this time, we were once again exhausted. Steve’s knees hurt, my feet hurt, and we were ready for some rest. We still had about a mile and a half to get back to the hotel, so we just kept pushing. Yes, we could have hailed a taxi, but what fun would that be?

We stopped at a little shop just down from our hotel, bought a couple of beers and headed to our room to get our shoes off and relax. Thank goodness for hotel slippers!!!

It was about 90 degrees and 90% humidity today, so we thought we did pretty well!

We didn’t even have enough energy to go out for dinner, so we ate our leftovers from lunch and called it a day.

As I sat down to write this post tonight, I quickly realized that my blog is blocked in China. I will have to write it in Word and then copy it over once we return home....Darn!