Beijing: The Forbidden City forbids all else!
Trip Start
Oct 27, 2007
1
6
9
Trip End
Nov 12, 2007
Beijing,
China
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Still satisfied from last night's mega feast, we skip breakfast and get straight down to business. That is avoiding hawkers and art students, of which there are many. It sounds harsh, and perhaps it is, but we are in Beijing to visit places like the Forbidden City, not to have a look at a student art exhibition. That said, that students we speak to are very friendly and polite. Perhaps we will endeavour to visit them later, but not just now.
Forbidden City
Baohedian - Gate of Preserving Harmony
We arrive at the Forbidden City at noon, later than planned, and this is to have a significant impact on the rest of the day. Paying our 40 yuan entrance fee (less than £3), we enter the great city and all I can say is praise be for digital cameras! If either of us had a film camera still, this would already prove to be an expensive trip!
Archways
Door handles
The Forbidden City is magnificent, covering 720,000sq. metres. Our explorations only appear to cover the main thoroughfare through the middle of the complex and a little to each side. Half a day here is clearly not going to be long enough! Unfortuantely, some of the buildings are being renovated. Well, it is unfortunate as it prevents us from seeing them, but it is also fortunate as it means they are being well looked after.
Arty shot - just because
Wandering around, snapping things and revelling in the sheer enormity of the place, we falt to notice closing time drawing up on us. At this point, I remember that a geocache is located nearby and the race is on to find it before we are removed from the City. Firing up the GPS, we wait for what seems like an eternity before our current location is discovered. We are looking for a large glass case with something in it (we have to find out what that something is) and head in the general direction of its coordinates. Sadly, time gets the better of us and we are asked to make our way to the main entrance.
The City at dusk
At this point, we join the crowds leaving the City just in time to witness what appears to be a parade of soldiers. We follow them, as does most of the crowd, out of the main gate. The soldiers cross the road on to Tian'anmen Square while we stand with the locals and other visitors. Here, we witness the ceremonial lowering of the Chinese flag. As a tourist spectacle, it is a bit of pomp and fun. As a means of getting visitors out of the City, it is first class!
Leisurely evening
Tian'anmen Square
With nothing planned for the evening, we head back to the hutong and set about planning when we might be able to squeeze a visit to the Temple of Heaven into our schedule. We discover that trying to do both in one day is futile - others have tried and failed too!
Looking at a map of the Forbidden City, two things become clear:
1. we only covered a tiny fraction of the City
2. we were still a long way away from the likely location of the glass case
Nevermind - there's always our next visit! (Oh yes, I'll be coming back to Beijing again!)
Mao and guard
We think about heading up the road for some dinner but are sidetracked by YangZi, her English speaking friend ZhangHan and an English traveller called Tony. We fall into conversation with them and share tales of the day. We also hear of Tony's travels across China. A man in, I guess, his late fifties-early sixties, he is taking eight weeks to thoroughly explore this vast land. He had hoped to be travelling with friends, but none of them would go with him. They don't know what they're missing out on!
Tony's journey is a more detailed reversal of ours. We are heading from Beijing, via Shanghai to Hong Kong. Tony started in Hong Kong, visited Shanghai at some point, lots of other places too (including Xian - home of the Terracotta Army - which, sadly, we are not able to visit this time around) and is finishing in Beijing. He will arrive home in the UK just two days before us and will no doubt have a fine story to tell. :)
The hours pass, conversation and tea both flow freely and any thoughts of grabbing food evaporate like the water boiling on the nearby stove. We end the day having eaten nothing and surviving on last night's meal. I wonder to myself if we can arrange a massive blow out every other night. This would serve two purposes:
1. less time spent looking for places to eat, thus more time for actual visits
2. I might lose a little weight by generally eating less!
Everyone eventually retires and, almost as soon as my head hits the pillow, I slip into a deep sleep...
