The Forbidden City

As I discovered two weeks ago, I actually have very few pictures from China on this site.  And it’s about time to fix that!

Today I thought I’d actually show some pictures from when I decided to go wandering around Beijing and ended up in the Forbidden City!  Well, it was planned, I didn’t exactly stumble upon a giant complex in the middle of town with a large tomb placed in front of it and the swarms of people waiting to get inside.  Kind of hard to miss…

Anyway, I used the subways system to get there (no small feat when literally everything is in a language you don’t know).  My stop was Wudaoku (I can say that fairly well) and the picture from the station is the first one, right there in the upper left.  Good thing everything is also in latin characters, like in this map of the subway system they had in the cars.

 

We must have switched lines at some point, because Wudaoku isn’t up there on the picture, but “Qienmen” or Tienamen is, right at the bottom.  Oh, and the Forbidden City?  That red picture in the middle…

Anyway, I made it there, and here is photographic proof.

 

Yes, I was listening to music.  When you can’t understand what people are saying around you almost at all times, it’s nice to have a little English in the background…

I might have written about this before (not sure if I have…), but one tradition when you enter the Forbidden City is to rub the gold circles on the red door.  Not sure why they do this, but everyone was doing it.

 

And I think they were kind of having fun doing it.  If anyone knows why you do this, please let me know!

Inside the City was a whole different story: tiny rivers, huge buildings, and sculptures of lions and other animals everywhere!

 

I’m not entirely sure where these pictures were taken inside of the complex (and it is a very large complex), but you can guess based on my “map.”  Not quite a map, more like my audio guide.  Thank goodness it didn’t have only Chinese characters!  I would have not been happy…  Not only did it have English, but it was a picture of the whole area.  Well done Forbidden City!

 

And that’s about all I have.  Hope you liked my pictures from the Forbidden City!