Beijing trip day 3-- The Forbidden City

On my last day in Beijing, I went to the Forbidden City.  The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of imperial rule.

It is huge.  There are 980 buildings.  I spent around four hours walking and only saw about half of it.  There are many different halls.  There was one huge hall each for the Emperor to rehearse ceremonies, rest before ceremonies, and perform ceremonies.

The three main halls weren't open to tourists.  There were open doorways to look through.  However, it was difficult to get pictures because of the large numbers of tourists.

Here's a picture inside the Hall of Central Harmony, where the Emperor would stop to rest on his way to ceremonies in the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

Here is a picture inside the Hall of Preserving Harmony, where the Emperor prepared for ceremonies.

I was able to enter some side building in a special exhibition area.  Here is a picture inside the Palace of Heavenly Purity, which was where the Emperors lived during the Ming dynasty.

There was a sundial in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony because the ability to tell time was considered the right of the Imperial Family.

There were many cool lion statues in front of buildings.  Some were bronze and others were gilded with gold.

There were many of these giant vats around the Forbidden City.  This was an early version of having fire extinguishers placed in many locations.  They were filled with water and many had places to build a fire underneath so that the water wouldn't freeze in winter.

They used to be entirely gilded in gold.  However, during the Boxer Rebellion, European troops who were looting the Forbidden City scraped much of the gold off.

One of the Emperors was a big fan of operas.  So, he had this three story tall opera stage built.  Through a series of trap doors and a pulley system, the performers could move between the different levels.

Members of the court would watch the operas while kneeling in the courtyard facing the stages.  The Imperial Family watched the operas from a separate building the faced the stages.  The Emperor had a large padded throne (I couldn't get a good picture through the protective glass).  There were separate viewing areas for is mother and wife.

This wall, known as the Nine Dragons Screen, has an interesting legend behind it,

The wall is made of glazed tile.  However, there is one small part that is faded more than the rest.  When you look closely, you can see that it is made of wood.

The story is that the workers dropped a tile and it broke.  Not wanting to anger the Emperor, they carved a duplicate out of wood and painted it to look like the rest of the stone tiles.  The Emperor never knew.

Well, that's the end of my Beijing trip.  It was an amazing time, but I wish I had longer.  There was so much more that I wanted to see.  Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Beijing trip day 2-- Great Wall and a brewery

The Great Wall of China

On my second day in Beijing, I traveled out to the Great Wall of China.  I visited the Mutianyu section of the Wall.  A friend from Beijing told me that this section is the best and it's not as crowded as the other sections near Beijing.  This section is older and better preserved than the more popular Badaling section.

The Wall was very impressive.  It stretches through the forested mountains to the north of Beijing.

The Wall follows the contours of the landscape and is rarely flat.  Walking along the top of the Wall in the 90 degree Beijing heat was exhausting, but well worth it.

One of the unique things about the Mutianyu section, is that there are many more guard towers here than at other sections of the Wall.

There was a cable car to take people to the top of the Wall and back down.

Great Leap Brewing

After getting back from visiting the Great Wall, I decided that it was time to relax with a pint and a burger.  I sought out Great Leap Brewing.  Great Leap bills itself as Beijing's first craft beer brewery.  The beer is brewed with Chinese ingredients.  Many of the beers are infused with different varieties of Chinese tea.

It was the best beer that I've had in China (and the best burger).  My favorites were the Yunnan Amber (amber ale infused with red tea from Yunnan province) and the Iron Buddha Blonde (blonde ale infused with Iron Buddha oolong tea).


That's all for now.  Check back later for Beijing day three:  the Forbidden City.

Beijing trip day 1-- Lama Temple and Tiananmen Square

Hello All,

Well, I survived the grind of summer classes.  At the end of the summer term I had a few days off and took a short trip to Beijing.  I was only there for three full days, but it was a great experience.  I traveled by myself on this trip, since none of the other foreign teachers had the same days off as I did, but Beijing is a very easy city to visit for English speakers.

While Shanghai is considered the financial and economic center of China, Beijing is clearly the center of political power.  The whole city is designed to showcase the might and power of China, and more specifically, the Communist Party.  The government buildings are all huge structures of stone with red trappings.

There are police and military personnel everywhere.  Everything is orderly.  Unlike other Chinese cities, traffic is strictly controlled.  To prevent people from walking in the streets, there are fences between the sidewalks and the roads.  At major intersections there are stairs and tunnels for pedestrians to cross.  Unlike most place that I've been in China, rules and laws aren't treated as merely suggestions; they are actually enforced.

I stayed in a hotel just off of Qianmen Street.  Qianmen Street is a pedestrian shopping street that leads right up to Tiananmen Square.  I could walk to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and a subway station.

Lama Temple

On my first day in Beijing I took the subway to the Lama Temple.  The temple was amazing!  It was built in 1694 and it has many separate buildings.  The temple is a Tibetan Buddhist temple and monastery.

Each building had stands for lighting incense sticks and praying, and the temple gave bundles of incense sticks to all visitors.

Each building was dedicated to a different area of Buddhist prayer or study.  However, photography was not allowed inside any of the halls.

The halls were filled with many beautiful pieces of Buddhist art.  There were many statues, jade carving, and paintings.  The most impressive was an enormous statue of the Maitreya Buddha in the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happinesses (pictured below).  It is 26 meters tall, and it was carved entirely from a single white sandalwood tree.  It extends through all the stories of the building.

Tiananmen Square

After going to the Lama Temple, I went to visit Tiananmen Square in the evening.  There were a lot of people there, even though it was late in the day.  The whole city of Beijing seems to be designed to be a monument to China and the power of the Communist party and its ideals.  But Tiananmen square, and the area around it, brings this to a whole new level.  Everything is huge.  Everything is orderly.  And everything is design to personify the ideals of the People's Republic of China.  It's hard to describe what it felt like to stand in the middle of all of it.

There was a lot of security at the square.  Everyone has to pass through a security check point with x-ray machines and metal detectors.  Also, there were police and military guards throughout the area.  Some were clearly more ceremonial, like this guard in front of Mao's Mausoleum.

I didn't go into Mao's Mausoleum.  It's only open for 4 hours every morning; the lines are crazy long; and you can't bring anything in (water, bag, camera).  Here are some pictures of the monuments outside of the building.

In the center of the square, just north of the mausoleum, is the Monument to the People's Heroes.  In this picture, you can see the National Museum of China behind it.  The museum borders the square on the east side.

This picture shows the mausoleum in the background.

On the west side of the square is the Great Hall of the People.  This is China's capital building.  It houses the National People's Congress.  During the day, you can see both military personnel and party members marching around the building. It's huge.  This is only the front door.

I did get a chance to see the flag lowering ceremony.  I mostly saw the backs of people's heads, cameras, and cellphones.

However, since I'm taller than the majority of Chinese people, I did manage to see a bit of the ceremony.  In the background you can see the Tiananmen Gate, with its portrait of Mao, which is the north gate into the square. During the flag lowering, the soldiers are saluting the portrait of Mao instead of the flag.

The ceremony was at sunset.  Here's a picture of the gate as I was leaving the square.

Here is a closer shot of the gate.  I took this during the day when I was going to the Forbidden City.  You pass through the gate to get to the Forbidden City.  The walks were lined with alternating soldiers and men in white shirts, who I believe are Party members.

Finally, this is the Zhengyangmen Gate.  It is the south gate to the square.  It was the entrance to the inner city until the Beijing city walls were torn down.

I know that this was a long post (and there are two more to come), but Beijing was just such an interesting city with so much to see.  The next two posts shouldn't be quite as big.  I hope you all enjoy the pictures.

Here's a preview of my upcoming posts (I'll try to get them up over the next few days):
Day 2:  The Great Wall and a great microbrewery that I found.
Day 3:  The Forbidden City