The Forbidden City

I am overwhelmed by the Forbidden City. I believe I lived there in a former life. (in an Imperial role, not as one of the extra concubines or a fourth rate eunuch - someone higher up that that.) There are over 8000 buildings that comprise the Forbidden City from small little cupolas where two people can meet for a conversation, up to the Place that holds the Dragon Throne. I’m actually rather annoyed with the Chinese Governmental department that oversees the Forbidden City for closing off the middle opening to the Hall of  Supreme Harmony which houses the Dragon Throne. Here you have probably the most incredible throne in existence today. and you can’t let the public see the details? I and about 100 Chinese citizens were pushing each other to get a decent view, from an angle that was not at all satisfying. Fortunately I could take most of them and got about a 66% sighting, but come on!!! Commie pinkos!

Here's what I should have seen.

But still, the Forbidden City! Incredible, amazing, fabulously interesting, historically suburb Forbidden City. Hard to walk up and down the million plus stairs, hard to get the English language tape to play at the right time, annoying not to get a proper look at the Dragon Throne (did I mention that?) but unbelievably wonderful. It was so satisfying despite the aching knees and exhaustion. There are several trees in the Imperial Garden that are 300 and 400 years old. There were palaces and courtyards and gates and pavilions and belvederes (excellent trivia question - what’s a belvedere?) The size of the Forbidden city it what is so surprising. You go through one amazing gate leading to an amazing palace and that’s just the beginning, it just goes on and on. Those Mings and Qings know how to house their emperors and his entourage. 

We were also in Tiananmen Square, which is huge!!! We wanted to go to Mao's mausoleum, but we just ran out of time. But it was amazing just being in the historic square.

Where is everybody?

We had the most beautiful weather you could imagine. Picture a perfect crisp and beautiful autumn day. From what I gather about Beijing, you don’t often see a beautiful sunny day, pretty much ever. But this day was perfect. 

We stared the day taking a modern day rickshaws (electric motor) through downtown Beijing, over many HUGE intersections. I have mentioned before that the Chinese are crazy drivers and I don’t care how stereotypical that,  sounds, I’m standing by it. OK, I’m not talking about all Chinese, only the 1.4 billion who live in China. That I’m firm on. 

So these drivers were taking me and Svend to an ATM. Would you suspect an ATM in downtown Beijing would be a 15 minute ride away? After believing we were being kidnapped, in addition to possibly being killed, we safely arrived at an ATM. However the poor unsuspecting drivers didn’t know what they were getting into when they tried to get over on Svend Hansen. The price agreed upon when leaving was 3 yuan (we thought) which is on 45 cents, but when we got out that said 300 yuan $45. OK, so we had taken a taxi the night before for about 40 minutes and it cost 55 yuan, about $8.00. So we knew 45 cents was too little and gave then 50 yuan ($7.50) But Svend’s driver wasn’t happy and the two of them started screaming in the middle of the street. (If you know Svend, you probably have never heard him scream at anyone.) There was a good sized crowd starting to gather, but Svend just walked away with the Chines guy yelling something that I’m pretty sure we could all figure out.

They still like each other in this pic

It was so tense but really so much fun! I did manage not to laugh until the we were out of sight to those guys. So all this excitement, followed by the gorgeous day at the Forbidden City. We were going to go out for Hotpot that night, but were too tired, so we went downstairs in our Chinese Faulty Towers hotel and had a very unsatisfying meal served by a bitchy waitress. Perfect day!