The Forbidden City

Today was a fantastic day exploring the heart of Beijing; The
Forbidden City. I could explain the whole history of the place but
lets be honest i would have stolen it from Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City). Basically it is a
MASSIVE royal palace complex that served as the home of emperors and
their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of
Chinese government. It is over 500 years old and we walked all around
it today.

First we had the odd experience of meeting up for a drink in Starbucks
with a friend from the UK who was just leaving Beijing after doing a
Mission tour of all the different work "The Amity Foundation" is doing
(http://www.amityfoundation.org/). This meant an early start and the
morning rush hour on the Beijing subway. It was great to meet up with
Christy-Anna and look forward to swapping China stories with her when
we get back. She gave us some good advice and some lovely spare toilet
roll (must public toilet in China are lacking).

We then decided to walk to Tiananmen Square and then on to the
Forbidden City. It was strange to visit Tiananmen Square as it is a
place loaded with social meaning and that famous footage of the man
alone who stood up. But none of this is represented in Tiananmen. The
square celebrates many deeds and accomplishments of the Chinese people
but it felt strange to be some where which (in my eyes) held such an
important event but makes no public reference to it.

We moved on to our main goal, the Forbidden city. Firstly let me tell
you that the Forbidden City is even bigger then you think, it truly is
huge. It is made up of a complicated number of wide open courtyards
and halls on raised stone arcades. To walk around here is to be
overwhelmed by the size of things. Everything is massive and hugely
impressive. We spent over half a day walking around the main big
courtyards and halls and then exploring the maze of smaller courtyards
around the central row of them. It is stone work everywhere and
fantastically painted woodwork. No real green from grass but plenty of
trees in the courtyards.

Close to the North end of the city is the imperial gardens full of
strangely weathered stone and ancient trees with branches so heavy
they have to be propped up with poles. On leaving the north gate you
cross the moat (which is over 60 meters wide) and can enter Jingshan
park. This park has a huge hill in the centre which was made from the
dug out earth from digging the moat. The mound raises 100meters up and
at the top you get a spectacular view over the Forbidden city. Only
then can you start to grasp the size of the thing. The gardens where
beautiful and a great end to the day.

All in all we walked for 9 miles today (michelle was not prepared for
this!) but we enjoyed every second of it :D

Tomorrow "The Great Wall of China"