The Forbidden City

Getting into Beijing’s Forbidden City started with a really big, hot queue.

Not so much forbidden, but really uncomfortably hot.

It was also really uncomfortably uncomfortable for one of the people in line next to me, who wasn’t sure which ID (national or foreign student), to show to the guards in order to stay with their (foreign student) girlfriend.

A particuarly relevant question given that the Forbidden City tickets sell out months in advance, but spare tickets are made specifically available to foreigners who are not travelling with a tour group.

Would you sneak your way into the Forbidden City?

Which, by the way, you enter via Tiananmen Square.

I guess you can google that one in your own time.

So.

It took me a long time to write this blog because there’s too much to say about the Forbidden City, and not enough I remember- with the day being a hot blur of beautiful sites and interesting stories smushed in amongst thousands of people.

First off, it’s a palace. But it’s called a city because it is famously huge. According to legend it has 9999 1/2 rooms. Half less than 10000 so as to show respect to the heavens. In reality, the number is smaller- but only slightly (8886).

A couple of months after visiting I found out that the city has something called a ‘9 dragon wall’, which I was disappointed to have missed.

But in reality, you could spend days wandering around and still not see it all.

The first two emperors of China’s Ming Dynasty had their seats in Nanjing, but the third emperor moved north to Beiing, in order to be closer to the threat from the northern border. All up, 10 Ming Emperoros and 14 from the Qing dynsasty lived in the City, from 1420 up until 1924.

Now, it’s a UNESCO heritage site, one of the most visited destinations on the planet (with upwards of 15 million visitors per year), and is the mos valuable real estate, and palace, in the world (worth US$70 billion).

I really liked this little urn- which (if I have the story right), held some of the most important treasures of the kingdom….

Which was seeds! Crop seeds in particular. Apparently the yellow colouring in the buildings is also supposed to represent crops, which is linked to all things- prosperity and health of the people. (Although wiki now tells me that yellow is just generally the colour of the emperor?)

The other thing that is clearly auspicious are the various animals, which guard and protect. Of these, the most important are the dragon- meant only for the emperor, and the phoenix.

This dragon-laid pathway was only for the emperor, with the empress allowed to walk over it on her wedding day to the emperor, but not before or afterwards.

As with the Summer Palace, the rooftops were lined with little statuettes, led by what wiki now informs me is a man riding a pheonix, and an imperial dragon:

Apparently, the number of statuettes indicates the importance of the building.

Normal numbers are 5 or 7, with the Hall of Supreme Harmony, which is the central building of the palace and location of the throne room (aka the one with the incredible dragon path), being the only building in the country permitted to have ten statuettes.

Still, the other buildings, despite their lowly status, managed to be quite spectacular.

While the roofs were the most beautiful part to me, some of the walls were also running pretty close competition:

And as well as the beautiful and intricately and dragonly detailed outsides, there were also some pretty stunning insides bits:

One of the best rooms/areas was that belonging to the Empress Dowager Cixi, a formidable woman who was selected as a concubine for the Xianfeng Emperor as a teenager. When the emperor died, her 5 year old son beCame Emperor, and Cixi assumed rule alongside Xiangeng Emperor’s widow, Ci’an. Cixi was became a political strategist, ousted a group of competitors, consoliddated control, and installed her nephew as reagent when her son died.

Overall, she effectively ruled for nearly 50 years.

^ The jade tablets are a gift form the Emperor to his mother on her 80th birthday, officially giving her the honorary title of Empress Dowager. The right is Cixi’s throne room, which has both phoenix and dragon motifs throughout.

Continuing on with the ‘appreciation of good rocks’ theme:

At a certain point, I had had my fill of the city, and was ready to make my way towards some food, water and shade….

Getting out in itself was a bit of a fight:

But soon enough I was on the other side

All up the City was incredibly beautiful, but- a bit like the Louvre, or the British Museum- probably something I’ll have to return to multiple times in order to really appreciate the full extend of the beauty and the stories behind it all.

And next time, I probably won’t do it on one of the hottest and most humid days of the year.

This time around, once I left the city I walked a bit, and then (AIRCONDITIONED) subway-‘d a bit, popping out a little bit further north of the city.

I interacted with my first-of-the-trip Jianbing- am amazing savoury pancake that costs me about 1 pound.

(Sameer first introduced me to these in London, but here they cost 12 pounds!)

There was some pointing, some translate-from-photo app used, and a lot of smiling thankfully at the vendor.

And then I spend 10 blissful minute sitting on the side of the road, scoffing hot egg pancake and drinking as much water as I could manage.

And then I went to find Nanluoguxiang.

One of the most popular and oldest Hutongs (alleyways) in Beijing, famed for being full of tasty food and culture.

Despite having surfaced and Nanluoguxiang station, I couldn’t really work out how to get into the hutong itself. Partially because hutongs by definition are supposed to be little narrow alleys, and partially because using google or apple maps in China is only about 20% helpful.

But I used a little bit of patience and a little bit of ‘following the people who didn’t look stupidly lost’, and made it in!

I spent an hour or two wandering around, looking at the different shops. And with a little bit of pointing, I managed to get myself some octopus on a stick, and later on some creamy mango ice.

I quite wanted one of these little sugar sculptures to bring back to Sameer, but didn’t think it would survival well amongst my minimalist packed backpack.

There was a bit more walking and exploring, and then- hot and exhausted- I headed back home.

My final meal of the day was in one of the hutongs near my hotel.

I ordered a plate of dumplings AND some delicious braised beef stew, despite the slightly questioning facial expression from the person serving me.

The whole thing cost about 9 pounds/16 AUD: