Forbidden City

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After being woken up by the roaring and shouting of Linda at all hours of the morning....Laura and I got up and went down to the Forbidden City. Had some nice greasy food with unidentifable meat outside and then went on in.
Lying at the center of Beijing, the Forbidden City, called Gu Gong, in Chinese, was the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Now known as the Palace Museum, it is to the north of Tiananmen Square and it is the world's largest palace complex. The Forbidden City is divided into two parts. The southern section, or the Outer Court was where the emperor exercised his supreme power over the nation. The northern section, or the Inner Court was where he lived with his royal family.
Construction of the palace complex began in 1407 and was completed fourteen years later in 1420. It was said that a million workers including one hundred thousand artisans were driven into the long-term hard labor. Stone needed was quarried from Fangshan, a suburb of Beijing. Apparently a well was dug every fifty metres along the road in order to pour water onto the road in winter to slide huge stones on ice into the city.
Since yellow is the symbol of the royal family, it is the dominant color in the Forbidden City. Roofs are built with yellow glazed tiles; decorations in the palace are painted yellow; even the bricks on the ground are made yellow by a special process.
The Forbidden City really is spectacular to walk around...the audio tour is really good.
We then went down to the silk market...as if a day would be complete without a visit and met the others for dinner for our last night after they had recovered!

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Photos

Laura, unknown solider, Karoline
These two uniforms came up and wanted to get a photo with us - of course we were delighted!