[More pictures of the Forbidden City (like the Forbidden Planet, but smaller)]
The Forbidden City is actually quite the large palace complex. I’d say it has the area of a couple city blocks. The general design, courtyards broken up by large sub-palaces, is fairly repetitive although the art varies some with each section. Interesting, you can tell a building’s importance by the number of little animal guardians it has at the upper corners of the roof. If it’s eleven, than the building was used for the Emperor’s most important functions. It is neat though being able to freely wander, back when this place was in operation for a guy like me to get in I’d have to be a top scholar or artist or give up hope of children.
There’s a lot of paintings on the buildings, statuary, and carved stone. The statuary and some of the giant water buckets used for fire extinguishing were gold coated. Some of that gold was stripped off when the place was raided by European powers back during the Qing Dynasty. The most precious treasures are actually over in Taiwan, although there is a neat clock museum. I didn’t actually see what they did have in the treasure gallery, Mick said it wasn’t that great and it cost extra. And speaking of costs, there was a quite affordable resturant. I got a good lunch and drink for around twenty five yuan (~$4).
Spending only a few hours wasn’t enough to really explore the place, although if we were guided (it was just me, Rick, and Mick) we may have seen a few more highlights. The audio tour was alright but the wifi proximity sensors didn’t always seem to trigger and there was no rewind or fast forward available. Also my guidebook incorrectly promised Roger Moore. The garden at the far end was quite neat and were I to go back I’d definitely take more time to explore it. There was one neat climbing area that apparently the Emperor and a consort would go up once a year to dine at the pagoda at the top. After we left we climbed the hill in Jingshan park, which was created using the soil from the moat. Good quick hike and a nice view from the top.
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