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| Going into the Forbidden City |
Showing posts with label Forbidden CIty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forbidden CIty. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Going into the Forbidden City
Having wandered around the Forbidden City the other day, it was time to brave the crowds and go back in! It was a weekday but for some reason it was completely packed. The weather has been great though and this day was no exception.
It was a little bright for great photo taking though.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Back in Beijing
Back in Beijing and Tom has come to visit!
After spending the Thursday resting and the Friday working, we went out for a walk around in central Beijing.
Not the best day for taking photos although it was super clear (for Beijing anyway)
After spending the Thursday resting and the Friday working, we went out for a walk around in central Beijing.
Not the best day for taking photos although it was super clear (for Beijing anyway)
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| Walking around the Forbidden City |
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Forbidden City
This last weekend (didn't quite get to writing it up until now!) we finally made it to the Forbidden City (or as the Chinese somewhat prosaically call it, the "Palace Museum"). The Forbidden City isn't like the other tourist attractions in Beijing, they're sort of on the outskirts and a little out of the way. It's literally (!) in the middle of the city. All the ring roads run in concentric circles around it, it's definitely the heart of the city.
And as we discovered last time, it's always packed, totally full of mainly Chinese tourists. Still it was a reasonable day (just a little overcast) and we decided we should check it out before it got too cold. On our bikes we jumped and cycled the 25 minutes or so to the front. The main entrance to the palace is on the south side, between it and Tiananmen Square, so you get the tourists for both in the same place. There weren't nearly as many people as there were the last time we tried to get in, and it was about 18 degrees cooler as well so it was a much better day for the purposes of checking it out. Given we're here for another 9 months or so, it's pretty certain we'll be back so there wasn't the pressure to see everything in a single day.
The place is HUGE. It's divided into the front palace (below the steps) and the back, private one (above the steps). The division was so great that one of the Chinese words for important people translates to "above the steps". There are lots of courtyards (for lots of court I guess), heaps of red pillars and marble, lots of decoration. The major architectural parts seem to be from the 17th century (1650s or so) but it was started almost 1000 years before that and changes and updates happened right through to the early 20th century, with the greatest change being getting rid of the "Son of Heaven".
I said in my post about the Summer Palace that the Chinese and I have very different views on historical locations/objects and this was true to an extent about the Forbidden City as well. Most of the buildings were closed and the ones that were open had small windows to look at the inside. This was the case for most of the throne rooms (I think there were at least 4!), there were 3 smallish doorways at the front, opening into darkened rooms. The result was that there was a huge crowd of people outside each one, physically pushing one another aside to look in. I understand that culturally the Chinese have issues with queues and stuff, but it just seems to me to be a weird way to see a priceless historical and cultural relic. It was worse for Jane, at least I could see over people!
Although that part of it was a little frustrating (I cannot even imagine what it would be like on a busy day), I found the Forbidden City to be a much more rewarding place for me than the Summer Palace. There was a little more context behind the various buildings, cauldrons, statues etc and some places with less people where less restoration had been done where I could get a better feel for what it had been like before all the restoration work.
We also took the time to look at the "Treasures" exhibition (but not the clock museum :). It also gave a lot of context to the way that the people in the palace must have lived and how cut off they were from the realities of life outside. There was also a fantastic wall of decorative clay dragons. I think that was my favourite spot in the whole place, it was really fantastic to see.
We made our way out of the Treasures building and were trying to get back to the front where the exit to our bikes was when two soldiers were moving everyone out of the way on that side of the palace. They ended up herding everyone out of that side of the palace (the one we hadn't seen) and pushing them towards the exit. We ended up asking him how we could get back to the front and he just pointed towards the other side. So we made our way that way, against the crowd (not an easy task!) until we got near the front courtyard. All the way the people were just moving together, no one seemed to be concerned or even curious about why, very few other people seemed to have asked why this was happening. Very strange anyway. Once we got to the front, we were just about to go to the exit when we saw it was blocked off. We were walking to the exit on the other side when a guy stopped us (and someone else on a bike) and made us move back so a group of African guys in suits could come through (we'd have made it across well in front of them too). It looked like this was the explanation for why the whole place was shut down, because these 10 or so guys were getting a private showing at 3 in the afternoon. Not very nice for the rest of us really. They also made us leave by a door that added about 2-3km to our walk back to the bikes, also pretty disappointing.
So I did enjoy the Forbidden City, it is a pretty remarkable place with amazing architecture and historical significance. It was a little let down by the presentation part, but definitely worth visiting on a quieter day :)
There are some more photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/david.mutton/ForbiddenCity?authuser=0&feat=directlink
And as we discovered last time, it's always packed, totally full of mainly Chinese tourists. Still it was a reasonable day (just a little overcast) and we decided we should check it out before it got too cold. On our bikes we jumped and cycled the 25 minutes or so to the front. The main entrance to the palace is on the south side, between it and Tiananmen Square, so you get the tourists for both in the same place. There weren't nearly as many people as there were the last time we tried to get in, and it was about 18 degrees cooler as well so it was a much better day for the purposes of checking it out. Given we're here for another 9 months or so, it's pretty certain we'll be back so there wasn't the pressure to see everything in a single day.
 |
| From Forbidden City |
The place is HUGE. It's divided into the front palace (below the steps) and the back, private one (above the steps). The division was so great that one of the Chinese words for important people translates to "above the steps". There are lots of courtyards (for lots of court I guess), heaps of red pillars and marble, lots of decoration. The major architectural parts seem to be from the 17th century (1650s or so) but it was started almost 1000 years before that and changes and updates happened right through to the early 20th century, with the greatest change being getting rid of the "Son of Heaven".
 |
| From Forbidden City |
I said in my post about the Summer Palace that the Chinese and I have very different views on historical locations/objects and this was true to an extent about the Forbidden City as well. Most of the buildings were closed and the ones that were open had small windows to look at the inside. This was the case for most of the throne rooms (I think there were at least 4!), there were 3 smallish doorways at the front, opening into darkened rooms. The result was that there was a huge crowd of people outside each one, physically pushing one another aside to look in. I understand that culturally the Chinese have issues with queues and stuff, but it just seems to me to be a weird way to see a priceless historical and cultural relic. It was worse for Jane, at least I could see over people!
 | ||
From Forbidden City
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| From Forbidden City |
Although that part of it was a little frustrating (I cannot even imagine what it would be like on a busy day), I found the Forbidden City to be a much more rewarding place for me than the Summer Palace. There was a little more context behind the various buildings, cauldrons, statues etc and some places with less people where less restoration had been done where I could get a better feel for what it had been like before all the restoration work.
 |
| From Forbidden City |
We also took the time to look at the "Treasures" exhibition (but not the clock museum :). It also gave a lot of context to the way that the people in the palace must have lived and how cut off they were from the realities of life outside. There was also a fantastic wall of decorative clay dragons. I think that was my favourite spot in the whole place, it was really fantastic to see.
 |
| From Forbidden City |
 |
| From Forbidden City |
 |
| From Forbidden City |
We made our way out of the Treasures building and were trying to get back to the front where the exit to our bikes was when two soldiers were moving everyone out of the way on that side of the palace. They ended up herding everyone out of that side of the palace (the one we hadn't seen) and pushing them towards the exit. We ended up asking him how we could get back to the front and he just pointed towards the other side. So we made our way that way, against the crowd (not an easy task!) until we got near the front courtyard. All the way the people were just moving together, no one seemed to be concerned or even curious about why, very few other people seemed to have asked why this was happening. Very strange anyway. Once we got to the front, we were just about to go to the exit when we saw it was blocked off. We were walking to the exit on the other side when a guy stopped us (and someone else on a bike) and made us move back so a group of African guys in suits could come through (we'd have made it across well in front of them too). It looked like this was the explanation for why the whole place was shut down, because these 10 or so guys were getting a private showing at 3 in the afternoon. Not very nice for the rest of us really. They also made us leave by a door that added about 2-3km to our walk back to the bikes, also pretty disappointing.
 |
| From Forbidden City |
So I did enjoy the Forbidden City, it is a pretty remarkable place with amazing architecture and historical significance. It was a little let down by the presentation part, but definitely worth visiting on a quieter day :)
 |
| From Forbidden City |
There are some more photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/david.mutton/ForbiddenCity?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Monday, August 29, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
The City is Fobidden
So today we decided that visiting the Forbidden City or Budao "Palace Museum" as it's called here. It's a nice day, warm but not scorching, not too much pollution. Turns out it's also the last day of school holidays. These are all terrible, terrible mistakes to make in China it appears.
After squeezing ourselves into the remaining cracks on the train to get here (quite pleased we made it without getting lost though), we followed the hordes to Tiananmen Square to find more hordes. If there are 1.2 billion people in China, at least a million were trying to get into the Forbidden City this morning, all pushing, shouting, getting in each others way and so on :) Also so many tour groups, all following someone with an umbrella and a little flag. Umbrellas are ubiquitous here, people use them all the time; sunny days, rainy days, normal days. This is all fine until you realise they hold their umbrellas at my eye height and they don't watch where they're sticking them.
We were supposed to meet some people at the entrance to the Heavenly Gate (it like everything else has a giant Mao on it) but we couldn't find them. There was a guy charging people for shooting pictures of them and then printing them out on his little portable photo printer which is pretty entrepreneurial I thought.
Once we got through the gate it was bedlam. I have never seen so many people outside of a music festival, all trying to get into the shade. We got to the ticket booths and the line was hundreds of metres long. We fortunately found our friends which is surprising, and we decided that rather than push through all the crowds, we'd go for a walk around the walls and then to Jingshan Park which has a temple on top of a hill. You can see the whole central city from the temple so we decided to go there. The way around the city was really nice, lots of shade, not too many people and some people out on the palace moat in peddle boats.
On the way around, some people decided to stop and ask Jane and Anita to be in a photo with them. Not to take one for them like we first though, but to be in a photo with some strangers.
On the way past we passed the corner of the moats, fantastic view. It was a bit misty so I will have to come back when it's clearer, maybe in the winter when the moat freezes over (no more peddle boats!)
The park itself is nice, lots of trees, lotus flowers in pots. Apparently an emperor hanged himself there (the people revolted against him, successfully, and he killed himself while blaming it all on his ministers!) which is nice! The vast majority of the tourists here are internal Chinese tourists which is a little odd. Not sure where they're all from, all over I guess. It does mean that most of the guides, signs and everything are aimed at them though which can be challenging.
We climbed to the top of a decent hill, Chinese steps all have a very small rise which is tough when you have longer legs! They're really tiring to climb up, but the view at the top was definitely worth it. The temple is pretty nice, has a giant gold Buddha who looks like he's trying to burst out, Hulk-style. Well sort of. The view over the city is fantastic, we are definitely going to come back on a slightly less hazy day. The Forbidden City itself is huge.
The temple has a view out all directions, the lakes to the west of the city centre look interesting, I think we will have to check them out when we get our bikes.
We climbed back down and had some lunch. One of the things about Beijing is that there are a lot of public parks and people spend time in them doing things that at home, they would normally do in private. This can include things like singing, dancing hanging out and also going to the toilet. We were serenaded by someone when we stopped for lunch, his music all sounded like seventies film scores and he was terrible! His mum seemed to like it though, she was there dancing away and clapping after every song so I guess that's something :)
After that it was a long walk back south to the other side of Tiananmen square. We took a quick look out to the square and saw the outside of Mao's Mausoleum, or the Mao-soleum as I shall be calling it from now on. This will need a return visit, as will the inside of the Forbidden City on a different day. It does look like it will be really pretty once the weather cools down so I'm looking forward to it.
As it is though, after all the walking on stones (bloody Beijing is all stones, concrete and marble), my feet need a couple of days rest. Back to the air-conditioned comfort of the apartment to enjoy the market food from yesterday and rest a little.
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| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
After squeezing ourselves into the remaining cracks on the train to get here (quite pleased we made it without getting lost though), we followed the hordes to Tiananmen Square to find more hordes. If there are 1.2 billion people in China, at least a million were trying to get into the Forbidden City this morning, all pushing, shouting, getting in each others way and so on :) Also so many tour groups, all following someone with an umbrella and a little flag. Umbrellas are ubiquitous here, people use them all the time; sunny days, rainy days, normal days. This is all fine until you realise they hold their umbrellas at my eye height and they don't watch where they're sticking them.
We were supposed to meet some people at the entrance to the Heavenly Gate (it like everything else has a giant Mao on it) but we couldn't find them. There was a guy charging people for shooting pictures of them and then printing them out on his little portable photo printer which is pretty entrepreneurial I thought.
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
Once we got through the gate it was bedlam. I have never seen so many people outside of a music festival, all trying to get into the shade. We got to the ticket booths and the line was hundreds of metres long. We fortunately found our friends which is surprising, and we decided that rather than push through all the crowds, we'd go for a walk around the walls and then to Jingshan Park which has a temple on top of a hill. You can see the whole central city from the temple so we decided to go there. The way around the city was really nice, lots of shade, not too many people and some people out on the palace moat in peddle boats.
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
On the way around, some people decided to stop and ask Jane and Anita to be in a photo with them. Not to take one for them like we first though, but to be in a photo with some strangers.
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
On the way past we passed the corner of the moats, fantastic view. It was a bit misty so I will have to come back when it's clearer, maybe in the winter when the moat freezes over (no more peddle boats!)
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
The park itself is nice, lots of trees, lotus flowers in pots. Apparently an emperor hanged himself there (the people revolted against him, successfully, and he killed himself while blaming it all on his ministers!) which is nice! The vast majority of the tourists here are internal Chinese tourists which is a little odd. Not sure where they're all from, all over I guess. It does mean that most of the guides, signs and everything are aimed at them though which can be challenging.
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
We climbed to the top of a decent hill, Chinese steps all have a very small rise which is tough when you have longer legs! They're really tiring to climb up, but the view at the top was definitely worth it. The temple is pretty nice, has a giant gold Buddha who looks like he's trying to burst out, Hulk-style. Well sort of. The view over the city is fantastic, we are definitely going to come back on a slightly less hazy day. The Forbidden City itself is huge.
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
The temple has a view out all directions, the lakes to the west of the city centre look interesting, I think we will have to check them out when we get our bikes.
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
We climbed back down and had some lunch. One of the things about Beijing is that there are a lot of public parks and people spend time in them doing things that at home, they would normally do in private. This can include things like singing, dancing hanging out and also going to the toilet. We were serenaded by someone when we stopped for lunch, his music all sounded like seventies film scores and he was terrible! His mum seemed to like it though, she was there dancing away and clapping after every song so I guess that's something :)
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
After that it was a long walk back south to the other side of Tiananmen square. We took a quick look out to the square and saw the outside of Mao's Mausoleum, or the Mao-soleum as I shall be calling it from now on. This will need a return visit, as will the inside of the Forbidden City on a different day. It does look like it will be really pretty once the weather cools down so I'm looking forward to it.
 |
| From Forbidden City and Jianshang Park |
As it is though, after all the walking on stones (bloody Beijing is all stones, concrete and marble), my feet need a couple of days rest. Back to the air-conditioned comfort of the apartment to enjoy the market food from yesterday and rest a little.
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