Yay! Day 4 of the vacation! It was Christmas eve!
We went to the Forbidden City that day! And passed by Tian An Men square again. had to go through the security checks this time.
It was pretty darn crowded!
Loads of people! What else can i say? There were guards at the sides too, yelling at people who were stopping to take photos. And prohibiting people from walking back. It’s a one way street!
Ahead in the distance - the Forbidden City!
I visited the Forbidden City once before, when we went Beijing those many years ago. I can’t remember it really well though, that’s why this time we visited it again. Anyway that red wall thingy is called the Meridian Gate. Says the map on Wikipedia.
Inside the Forbidden City!
All the above photos are of the courtyard of the gate of supreme harmony. Again, the names actually sound really elegant in Chinese.
That’s the first palace, the hall of supreme harmony.
A bronze… I don’t know what this is called. My first reaction is to say it’s a ding, but then the top half kinda makes it different.
A large bronze storage tank (ok, there’s probably another, better name for this but my brain isn’t quite working now) beside the palace. There’s like… one on each side I think? And they are fill with water so that in case of fire, there’s water on hand to quickly put out the fires.
Another view. Yes this thing is huge! Kids will drown if they fall in.
The Forbidden City has changed much since my last visit. Dustbins. Loads and loads of benches for tired tourists to rest… somehow it wasn’t really crowded that day when we went though. Just read on the news a few days ago that now voice amplification devices like loudhailers and microphones have been banned in the Forbidden City, because that place is too noisy already. It’s a good move, methinks.
One of the smaller halls.
The sky is really pretty that day eh? A nice deep blue.
A broken lock/knob on the door.
That’s the Hall of Preserving Harmony.
Tried my hand at a panorama shot here.
Needless to say, it was crowded at the opening to see the furniture inside the halls. I didn’t bother squeezing in much, though my sister did. And she was very successful in capturing loads of pics on the camera. I did take a few though. Like this one.
As you can see from the bottom left of this photo, the sun was extremely bright that day. I got a pair of sunglasses that could go over my specs in sg prior to the trip. But somehow, putting on the sunglasses made my eyes tear badly. Probably because of the moisture that I was blowing upwards because I was wearing a face mask. Still, it was either wear the sunglasses or get blinded. Strangely my eyes were fine w/o the sunglasses though, even though I was still blowing moisture upwards and fogging my specs. Maybe because the surface area of my specs is smaller? *shrugs*
More photos. Kinda lopsided though >< And I just realised that I have loads of photos that needs cropping…. because my fingers have gotten into the photo. Thanks to my ‘squeeze and go’ method of taking photos, many a times with one hand…. to save time as we move along + cos it’s cold and I’m wearing gloves. Normally I’ll snap two quick pics of the same thing, but there were times when BOTH pics have my fingers at the edge. And I didn’t notice it then because either I was in a rush, or my fingers were blocking part of the screen so I didn’t notice. Sigh.
A beautiful stone carving. There’s no such stone available in Beijing. It was all transported from idk where in China. Wonder how they transported these huge stabs of stone to Beijing in those times when there was no cars or other motorise vehicles? Well, I heard it numerous times from the other tour guides (yes they were loud). They waited till it was winter, and dug wells every few meters along the roads. Then the splash the road/pavement with ice till it freezes over. And the stone blocks were dragged over the ice manually with ropes. Very slow, tedious work.
Honestly. I’ve lost track of which palace is which already. It was somewhere around here though, where the palace museum was and I bought the palace princess/queue bookmarks.
Oh! Another! Managed to get a photo of inside the palace. See the shadows at the bottom! Just one really small opening, but loads of people trying to take photos, stretching their phones/cameras up above people’s heads.
A kid climbed past the barrier at his parent’s urging to take photos, but was quickly chased out by a security guard (read: military man).
No idea what’s this. Looks nice though...
Tortise. Minus the kid. Hahaha
One of the small palaces in the rear of the Forbidden City.
A stone plague in the courtyard of that same palace.
The Imperial garden. It’s filled with ancient trees.
The garden is really beautiful. Just look at the flooring. The beautifully laid out stone patterns!
Those stones. Arghs what are they called again… I can’t remember. But they are natural occurring stones, the product of erosion. And not found in Beijing, if my memory of what the guide told us is right or I didn’t get mixed up with another part of China. Again, ‘imported’ from elsewhere.
That Ancient Tree.
I love the way the branches drape downwards.
Yup. The sign. And it’s written in good English too. Then again, it’s the Forbidden City! Beijing, China’s really, really important landmark. You can't expect anything less.
More beautiful trees.
Another tree. With split trucks. Incredible huh? A lot of effort was put into the trees in the garden, that’s all I can say.
I snapped a ton of photos of this… this… shelter. Arghs. What do you call this in English?
Ice! On the surface of the artificial pond.
More floor deco! Elephants!
Oh this one. Look at the truck! It’s amazing.
These trees are all hundreds of years old. Seeing generations of emperors come and go… If the tree could tell it’s story, what will it be like, I wonder?
More decorations in the garden.
And more decorations.
Another panorama shot attempt.
Attempt no. 2.
Ah the truck of this tree. Look at that one shiny part. Shiny because of all the tourists who have came to touch it.
More stone floor decos. It’s hard to see the pattern now - the colour have probably faded away, but I was still fascinated.
The sun was really, really bright then. I could barely keep my eyes open to take this photo.
The garden is huge! We only walked a small part of it.
Ok, back to that same shelter, because the way out is there. They sold ice cream in the garden weeny parents went there last time, mum was looking for it, but was told they don’t sell ice cream in winter. Aw! She managed to find some souvenirs though!
And tada! That’s the back, well outside, of the Forbidden City. It’s a one way track. In from the front, out from the back. No exiting from the front and no entry from the back. With so many tourists (both local and foreign… actually that day I saw more local tour groups from other provinces/cities than foreign tourists) visiting everyday, good crowd management is a must. And it’s something that China does well I think, after all it is the most populous country in the world.
The sign in the middle says Palace Museum.
More attempts at panorama shots. Because my parents were taking photos for a long time.
And yes another.
Ok. That’s the end of the Forbidden City tour. Next up we went to Nan Luo Gu Xiang.
The train station. I’ve been saying train all along… but maybe subway would be a better word? Or metro?
Anyway, it’s street were the old buildings have been preserved. But it’s now a bit touristy, and with it you know… the prices… It’s sort of like a creative centre? A young people’s hangout. Loads of snack shops (and those more modern snacks too, many from other countries), and creative, fashion stuff…
More trees.
Anyway. We were hungry, so it was lunch time first! This is one of Beijing’s famous dishes. Whose name I’ve happily forgotten. But still. It’s like braised pork skin and beans (kinda like edamame, might actually be the same), frozen together with the broth, and then sliced.
Oh this. It’s veggie soaked in mustard. LOADS of mustard.
The restaurant we ate at was really cool. It had loads of small rooms and stuff… we had this room all to ourselves. The prices were reasonable too.
Wall decos. Christian messages along side a Mao Zedong poster. I don’t know what to make of it… :P
East meets west in this cosy, cottage like restaurant. The restaurant is pretty big, there’s like outside seatings too.
Deep fried vegetable. I forgot which veggie. But it’s like… tempura veggie. With a different flour though.
Lemon + rose tea.
Chopsticks. With a cute panda wrapping.
Stir fried lamb. Delicious.
The famous Beijing zha jiang mian.
Fish head! That came with those rice noodles. Very fresh fish!
More photos of the fish… it was such a huge plate, we were shocked.
A lantern hanging in the outdoor seating area.
What do you call this? An outdoor standing heater?
That’s the restaurant entrance. With the name stupidly blocked by the shadow of the lantern. Still the same no matter what settings dad and sis tried on their cameras. The sun was too bright!
Anyway, the plague at the side is an award signifying that this shop has one of the top 10 best food in that street.
Another restaurant.
Yet another restaurant. Spectabilis? Dunno, never heard of that word before.
Trees.
And more trees. Naked branches against the beautiful blue sky. I guess it’s partly because we don’t really have ‘naked’ trees in tropical Singapore.
MJ DESSERT! I just had to snap this photo. Selling takoyaki too!
Ok, it was photoS. With an S.
Just, random photos of the street.
Ahhhh! No more! That’s all the photos of that day! Yay!!! Post finished! Ha! Sort of.
Well. This was were I bought all the postcards, and the rest of the book marks.
Ah here they are. Some of the bookmarks I bought. The bookmark at the extreme right is the one from the Forbidden City, the rest were all from Nan Luo Gu Xiang. And I bought a whole stack of close to 20 postcards.
Dinner was random street food. There was this churros with ice cream stall. The churros was delicious. We had this strange wrap thing with duck inside. And we had this Madier ice cream (wiki says the name comes from the word ‘modern’. Doesn’t sound alike though) too. It’s a brand that originated in Harbin, but now they have branches in other major cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Says wiki. Well, I can attest that there was one in Beijing, because we ate it there. Mum was teasing that we actually ate the ice cream before going to Harbin.
So that was all for day 4. We took the train back to the hotel and packed up, because the next day we’ll be heading off to the airport right after a quick breakfast in the hotel!
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