The Not So Forbidden City

When yesterday began we had planned for all day to be completely devoted to the Forbidden City. We got up and took our time to go eat breakfast on the way, but I had forgotten my wallet in the room so we had to run back there to pick it up. By the time we had gotten back to the hotel and I had my wallet, Georges stomach was completely in knots. The food had taken all this time to hit him, but when it did, he wasn’t feeling up to walking around all day. So George stayed back in the hotel while Gordon, Max, and I went to the Forbidden City.

We hopped in a cab and quickly were on our way. This time the cab ride though went right through what looked to be the 5th Avenue of Beijing. As we approached the Forbidden City we saw a strip of the nicest foreign cars in the world. There were Lamborghini, Ferrari, Pagani, Rolls Royce, and a few other dealerships with their cars behind glass, less than a mile from the south entrance of the Forbidden City. Pretty soon after seeing the crazy cars, we were standing at the edge of the walls of the Forbidden City.

The City itself was another one of those whoa moments, where it really hits you that you’re half way around the world, seeing one of the coolest most historically significant places in the world. This attraction was beautiful, huge, and completely packed with tourists. Waiting in line to get a ticket to get in was over 30 minutes itself. Even at the terra cotta warriors there was no where near as many people as we saw yesterday at the Forbidden City. The wait though for the ticket was well worth it. As you walk in from the south entrance you are making the same ceremonial walk that every emperor of China for thousands of years walked. Only up until 1924 did the last emperor move out of the Forbidden City and it became a historical monument.

As we walked in the first two buildings we see are the biggest buildings in the whole palace. They are the largest wooden standing buildings in China, and are massive. Completely swamped in people at the base, it is still an amazing sight. Each tile of the roof is hand carved with a dragon on each, and the detail is incredible. The columns are a detailed red with gold designs and the tiles making the roof were gold. There are cast iron statues all around with the different animals that have different meanings. There were turtles that represent longevity, and beasts that represent protection, to name a few. The city itself is massive, but only a small portion of the overall city is open to the public. The Chinese were big fans of symmetry so the inner portion, which was open to the public, was a small proportional part that was open to us, and the outer ring that wasn’t open to us, can basically all be folded down a giant marble line that runs through the city. To understand the massive size of the city, it used to hold 9,999 ½ houses. The strange number is because they used to believe that the number 10,000 could only be used by the emperor, and because there were other people in the palace there could only be 9,999 ½ buildings. Some of the other cool facts are that the emperor was the only person in the whole city with balls. All of his male servants, dukes, soldiers, everyone, were unics; so that there was no chance of them sleeping with the empress and ruining the imperial blood line. And although the emperor was the only one with balls, there were over 3,000 women at his wish every day. He had his wife the empress, and 3,000 concubines, which when Max was explaining this to us, originally told us he had over 3,000 cucumbers.

Joking about the cucumbers for the rest of the day we walked around the magnificent palace until our legs dead tired. Then we stopped for a bit and walked some more. In the north end of the palace was the emperor’s garden. This garden was really cool with giant rocks, cool trees, and really pretty flowers. By the time we made it back to the garden though, it had started to rain again. This time we were able to by umbrellas and although pictures didn’t turn out as well, we stayed dry. In some of the side buildings there were a lot of the treasures that belonged to the emperors. A lot of the treasures from back in the day were looted during the Boxer Rebellion, but many were still there. There were really cool jasper and jade tea pots and even swords. It was really cool and there was a whole room devoted to broken pottery that had been shipped from special kilns all around the country. Some of the giant marble slabs that had crazy dragon carvings in them were also imported from different parts of China, and some of them were so big and shipped from so far away that they had to slide them across ice for 28 years before it made it to the palace.

Right now I have to cut this short again because we are going to the great wall today but I will be able to finish tonight and let you know more about it.

Sorry,
Marty