Last Day in Beijing - Forbidden City

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It is Saturday and our last day in Beijing. Mom and Dawn got up early this morning to watch the flag raising ceremony in Tiananmen Square. Thomas slept in, and I managed to get a run in, touring through the streets of Beijing. By the way, Beijing is formed from two Chinese characters: ‘bei’ meaning ‘north’ and ‘jing’ meaning capital - Beijing is the capital city in Northern China (the capital used to be Nanjing, ‘nan’ meaning ‘south’!). A common nickname used for Beijing now is just ‘jing’ which was the Chinese character seen with the Olympic logo last year.

In the mid morning, we challenged our agoraphobia by visiting the Forbidden City. It was packed going in, but we spent almost 3 hours there, so the crowd had thinned out by the time we were leaving. The Forbidden City, or Palace Museum as it is now officially known, was initially constructed in 1406 and served as the Imperial Palace for 24 different Emperors of the Ming and Qing (‘ching’) dynasties, over a period of almost 400 years. It is a vast (720,000m2 collection of palaces, temples, offices and living quarters, for the Emperors, Empresses, concubines, eunuchs, and thousands of servants. There are 2 main sections, the inner and outer courts. There were a number of ‘gates’ separating sections, which were huge structures and vary large courtyards between, all intended to separate the Emperors from the common people, literally and figuratively. The various buildings all had exotic names, like the Hall of Great Supremacy, the Palace of Heavenly Supremacy, and of course, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, or Tiananmen Gate. This last one was also the building where Chairman Mao proclaimed the communist People’s Republic of China in 1949. I tried to capture as many as I could in the pictures, and have posted a few for you to explore yourselves!

We also had a real ‘small world’ experience at the Forbidden City - while we were waiting in line for the tickets, Thomas found a friend of his from his school back n St. Albert, Darren Roszell, whose family just happened to be touring through the Forbidden City at the same time as us!! Hard to believe! It was nice because it gave someone else for T to chat with during the 3 hours, so much so that T couldn’t believe how quickly time passed!

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Photos

The Lion - Empress
Two lions on either side of the door, the male on the right and female on the left, represent the Emperor and Empress.

T & Darren
Thomas unexpectedly met a friend from school, Darren Roszell, who was also touring the Forbidden City with his family. It isn't really a small world, but some times it can seem that way!

Palace of Supreme Harmony
I believe the guide said this was the inspiration for that harmonious mo-town group, Diana Ross and the Supremes.

I think there is a Starbuckss in here somewhere
Trying to find our bearings in the vast courtyards of the Forbidden City.

Temple of Heavenly Tranquility
The living quarters for the Emperors.

Temple of Zim Bie
Also known as the Temple of Eternal Childhood. People come to the Temple of Zim Bie to pray for memories of their childhood, remembering figures and stories that brought them happiness, and therefore retaining their youth. The legend is that you repeat Zim Bie slowly 4 times (4 is a special number in Chinese because it is half of 8), with emphasis on the first syllable, and that will bring you happiness.

Palace of Supreme Harmony
A quieter stroll past the Palace on our way out of the Forbidden City.

Tiananmen Gate tunnel
Passing under Tiananmen Gate, you can see the monuments on Tiananmen Square in the distance.

Comments

[Uncle 'Slow' (formerly Uncle Ding Dong)]

I am Speechless - Without Speech
OK - First I thought - The 'Temple of Zim Bie" are you kidding me?? For a Travel Blog Commenter living vicariously through the adventures of others (excuse the redundence) this is just too good to be true. And then I have to read almost to the end of the caption before I start thinking - 'wait a minute - this is getting scary'. And then I see it. And that's where I'm really slow because I'm thinking - 'Where did they find that?!?' Too funny! Makes the whole red pants thing seem so lame (isn't that where we started this). OK - so - I went back through the photos (in my defense, I couldn't get some of them to enlarge). I have the Zimbie watching the mock medal ceremony, on the shelf at the Bird's Nest gift shop, at the 5th Beacon Tower (where it looks like someone is trying to steal him) and of course, at the Temple of Zim Bie. Good one. (Great one!) Makes a guy wonder what he can possibly do with a red pair of size 38 jeans to follow this. Can't wait to see the Zimbie in real life. I am humbled. Uncle Ding Dong.

[JAJ]

Zimbie's world tour
This may be the start of something great! Wasn't sure if you were being coy and not saying anything, or we were just so darn effective in our placements... I have a bout a dozen photos but some were just too obvious to post early in the game. I was going to go back to some of them, then the Temple of Zim Bie idea came to mind... Dawn and I were giggling the most about my line "4 is considered lucky because it is half of 8" - it seemed like everyday we heard a new story about a lucky or important number for the Chinese, so we figured there must be something special about 4 too!!! Anyway, let's see where Zimbie travels next...