Blogs from Forbidden City, Beijing, China, Asia - page 23

We arrived in Beijing on Sat. evening, Oct. 6 and are now visiting my (Andrea) cousin and her family who have been here for 2 years. Today we visited Tian anmen Square and the Forbidden City, tomorrow we head out to The Great Wall. We'll fly home on Thursday--leaving Beijing at noon on Thursday and arriving in Albuquerque Thursday evening of the same day. (The return flight gives us back the 14 hours we lost on the way out.) We will post photos once we return to ABQ as we are having more technical difficulties with the photos now.... read more

The construction of The Forbidden City began in 1406. It is now called The Palace Museum. It is in the central part of Beijing and was the imperial palace of Ming and Qing dynasties. 24 different emporors lived in the palace for nearly 500 years. The halls and pavilions and palaces seem to go on forever. The whole complex is nearly 1 000 000 square metres with 9 000 bays and halls. The walls around the city are about 10 metres high with magnificent towers on each corner. The whole complex is surriounded by a moat so it becomes a fort to keep outsiders out. In fact, if you were caught in the city you would have had your head cut off quick smart. It is remarkable how well preserved everything is. In a country that ... read more

Stimmt gar nicht! Wir sind jetzt in Datong und fahren erst morgen nach Peking. Im travelblog wird diese Stadt leider nicht vorgeschlagen. Also!! Wir sind bereits in China. Was schoooon?? Und warum so lange keine Bericht mehr, hä?? Nun ja das hat mehrere Gründe. Zu müde, kein Internet, nur kompliziertes oder Schneckentempo Internet oder auch einfach mal keine Lust. Was ist alles passiert: Nach Krasnojarsk, kam so manch andere Westsibirische Stadt. Alle irgentwie ähnlich. Landschaft unverändert, Stimmung auch. Nur eines ist neu. Ich fahre bei Heide nicht mehr mit. Es hat null harmoniert und uns beiden unnötig Nerven gekostet. Bin nun Gast bei den Teams. Mal bei Berthold und Hans, mal bei Helmut und Dietmar mit Gästen, dann bei Swen und Jens oder Gordon und Rais. Sehr spannend. Zur Fahrt durch Russland ist noch der Baikalsee ... read more

September heat wave greeted us at the gates of the Forbidden City. It is a fantastic site. We had no problems getting through the airport and Leslie felt good after 5 hours sleep, right out of it, out of 13 on the plane. The hotel is great, a business style place and of course we got the free upgrade because of our reserved room given to a tour group. This is common and usually good. Now to find a decent place to eat. Tomorrow off to the "Secret" Great Wall for a day of hiking. I will try to put up a few pictures tomorrow. So far the only internet we find is at the hotel for $1.40 for 5 minutes. Smooth sailing so far. Heidi are we on track for Kunming? Reply by email.... read more

We were up early (ish) and after breakfast we headed on down to the forbidden city. We knew the way by now as it is situated at the top end of Tianemen square. As we arrived we could see that it was packed full of tour groups all bustling to get to the entrance and once we barged our way through the gate it opened out into another large square, interestingly with 2 basketball courts in it. Thankfully it was a large area so the groups dispersed as we made our way to buy our entrance tickets. Tickets bought and map in hand we entered the "now not so" forbidden city. The city as a whole is realy impressive and as we made our way through we got a real feel as to what it must ... read more