Now that I have completely messed up the order of posts for China, I figured I would continue in a disorderly manner. Prior to eating at Black Sesame we worked up an appetite by touring through the forbidden city. We arranged for a guide to take us through the city and talk about smart moves. We could have easily walked through the palace grounds without a guide, but we wouldn’t have gotten all the detailed information our guide provided us, nor would we have so smoothly weaved a path through so many Chinese tourists. The palace lived up to its expectations and may have been my favorite historical site of the trip. After visiting the Forbidden City we watched the Last Emperor and saw some of the locations where it was filmed.
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| Between the moat and the Palace entrance. They would use all the dirt from the moat and a man made lake to make a hill behind the palace. |
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| The entrance to the Forbidden City. |
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| The central bridge. Reserved for the emperor, we were feeling rather nobel so we figured might as well walk along it. |
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| There were two lions guarding the entryway. This one represented women, thats why there is a cub under her paw. |
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| On the other side was the male, thus the break up of the pictures. |
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| A closer view of the lions face. |
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| The required foot shot on the bricks in one of the courtyards. |
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| The main throne room where the Emperor would receive petitioners. Unfortunately it was closed the day we visited. We had to settle for the other two throne rooms. |
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| The edges of the roofs had the emperor on a chicken followed by other animals. He rode a chicken because it is said that an earlier emperor had been saved in a battle by a chicken that fell from the sky. |
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| Excellent painting and detail. Parts of the palace had been redone for the Olympics 4 years ago. |
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| A closer look. |
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| Only one building had 10 figures. The rest had fewer. Ten had spiritual powers and was reserved for god. Thats why there are 9999 rooms to show that the palace is second only to the sky palace which has 10,000 rooms. |
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| One of the many gates in the palace. In the distance you can see the pagoda we are standing in at the back of the palace. |
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| One of the throne rooms that was open that we were able to visit. |
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| Caitlin in one of the doorways. |
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| Overlooking the Forbidden City. |
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| The walkway to one of the Emperor’s throne rooms. This was carved out of a single piece of stone. In order to get it to the palace in one piece they froze the ground and slid it all the way from the Quarry. |
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| The same throne room straight on. What you don’t see in this picture is all the people I am boxing out to get this picture. |
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| One of the knockers on one of the doors. The doors had these nubs on them in a 9×9 layout to keep with the number 9 theme. |
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| David in front of a tile design on a wall. |
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| A dragon infront of one of the empresses rooms. |
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| Bill and Gail in the garden in front of the intertwined trees. Our guide told us that a picture in front of these would guarantee 65 years of happiness. |
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| Caitlin and I infront of the trees. |
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| Flowers in the gardens. |
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| A cool rock formation with a pagoda on top of it. In the past only eunuchs would be allow in this part of the palace. |
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| Us on the man made hill behind the Forbidden City. |
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| See all the people leaving and it was only 11am at this point. |
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| The lake they built that the emperors could take to the summer palace. The palace you see across the lake was apparently the Mongol’s palace. |
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| Whats a trip to a palace without a really big leaf picture. |
From Russia with Love 