Gulp, where do I start? Beijing is immense and our first day here was a whirl wind. Such living history, such incredulous sites, such people! I’ll try my best to correctly recount all the history and details that were given to us today.
We started at 8:30 this morning with our guide, David, and our driver taking us to Tiananmen Square. The legendary square of Beijing – known to us Westerners as the home of the student protests of 1989, but known to the Chinese as historically important for other events. At one end of the square there were thousands and thousands of people in a line that wound like the Great Wall itself around a center building.
This serpentine line led the masses into the building which houses the remains of Chairman Mao in a crystal coffin. We didn’t go inside, although it would have been fascinating, but instead went on across the square to the northern end. The Square is a massive gathering place which can hold 1 million people – the largest in the world. There weren’t quite a million there today, but close to it – or at least it felt so.
So many people. And so many guards and police and security guards and – what we assumed to be – undercover security agents. So many people taking pictures and taking our picture and taking Emmy’s picture.
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| Dad and Stevie negotiating for a Chairman Mao watch (his arm waves the seconds!) |
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| That's the first gate into the Forbidden City behind us. We're standing in Tiannamen Square. |
From Tiananmen Square we crossed under the great boulevard to the Forbidden City. Again, massive. From the "Outer City" you enter in through the first gate – through a wall 28 feet thick and 26 feet high – to the Inner City.
Then you pass through a second wall and gate to another courtyard
which brings you into the Imperial City to pass through another gate to get to the Forbidden City.
All these walls are surrounded by a 171 foot wide moat, just in case the three walls were bridged. And the Emperor was so afraid that potential assassins would get to him any way they could, he even had the yard of the courtyard paved with 7 layers of bricks laid in one direction with 8 layers of bricks laid in the other direction on top! And there are no trees in the inner courtyard because he didn’t want any hiding places for potential assassins! There is so much history to tell about the Forbidden City but here’s the short version: It was built from 1406 to 1420 during the Ming Dynasty by over one million workers. For over 500 years it served as the the Emperor’s private headquarters as well as the political center of China. It has 980 buildings and covers 7,800,000 square feet! Only high ranking officials and nobles were allowed inside the City, but no one but the Emperor was allowed in the inner ring. Only the Emperor could enter through the middle gate, others had to use one of the four other gates provided (except the Empress who got to go through the middle gate once, on her wedding day!). The enormity of it all was truly amazing.
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| This was in the Imperial Gardens - they had trees that were over 300 years old! The rock came from 1,500 feet under a particular lake and was highly prized. |
We went to look in a particularly crowded area at one point and left the kids with David, our guide. When we got back this was the scene! I told you they liked to take Emmy's picture (the kids are buried beneath all those people with cameras!
From the Forbidden City we went for lunch at a restaurant at a park – a yummy spread of dishes served family style.
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| A beautiful scene at the park where we had lunch. |
From lunch we were taken to a pearl factory – there are certain industry stores that are run by the government which tourists are requested to peruse. Silk stores, jade stores, etc. We had a quick look around before heading out to the next stop of the day – the Temple of Heaven. This is the temple that the Emperor came to two to three times a year in order to give thanks to the god of heaven for the prosperity of the nation. The Emperor believed he was the son of the god of heaven. For instance, in the Forbidden City, there were 999 ½ rooms – it was believed that there were 1,000 rooms in heaven so the Emperor couldn’t have the same number – he had ½ of a room short. In China, nine is the divine number so everything at the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City was set up based on multiples of nine. The Temple of Heaven sits on an area 4 times as big as the Forbidden City, so you can only imagine how large it is; however, most of it is a park-like setting so it made for a pleasant walk.
