The Forbidden City
Beijing, China.
What a long day! Today we went to the Forbidden City. After our usual breakfast of a giant bowl of ramen noodles, we headed out taking the bus for the first time. It was pretty easy, fast, and comfortable, so I think we might take it more often. We’ve been taking the subway a lot, which is also really nice, but it is often very crowded. I think we’ve gotten seats once and that was at night. Today was very, very hot. Our hostel posts the day’s weather forecast by the door every day and I guess I haven’t gotten used to the metric system yet because I didn’t realize how hot 31 degrees celsius is! There were also perfectly clear skies, so the sun was just blaring down at us. Steve broke his sunglasses in Peru somewhere and we’ve yet to replace them, so he was practically blinded by the bright sun. We ended up buying an umbrella (something we’ve been meaning to do anyway) which saved both of us, I think! At least it provided a little circle of shade.
We got off the bus near Tian’anmen Square, the site of the famous riots. It’s touted as the world’s biggest public square and houses Mao’s mausoleum right in the center (and supposedly his preserved body on display, but it might also be made of wax–a little creepy either way). After the mostly leafy squares in South America that had benches in the shade, fountains, and flowers everywhere I was a little disappointed by Tian’anmen Square. It was pretty literally just a giant empty block with barely a tree or flower in sight (there were a few flower displays for the Olympics). Communist architecture at its finest, I suppose. We accidentally wandered into a park beside the square that we had to pay 3 yuan for (like fifty cents). But we quickly realized our mistake and backtracked out and then through a big wall (and under a giant photo of Mao) that marked the entrance to the Forbidden City.
The city itself was giant and crowded and was pretty amazing for the shear size and scope of it. There were buildings everywhere, all in the same fancy style (I have no idea what it’s called). I didn’t know much about the city before we went. We read a little about it–that the Emperor lived there and barely every left. And that the only males allowed inside the city were eunichs so he didn’t have to worry about them sleeping with his women. But from a tourist perspective I think I expected something more than just building after building like we’d already seen in different parks and at Prince Gong’s Palace. I guess since it was so extensive and so many people used to live there I expected more displays of how the houses were set up inside and what all the buildings were used for (they all had fun names like the Hall of Supreme Harmony or the Palace of Prolonging Happiness–that one looked like it was falling down or had gone through a fire or something! Sadly, the Hall of Literary Brilliance was off limits). Instead it was just building after building with soem of the main halls having a giant throne inside. But those you couldn’t go inside. It was neat, but a little disappointing. And also barren of trees which we painfully noticed since it was so hot! At the very end of the city there was an Imperial Garden which was pretty with very old cyprus trees being held up by metal poles! It added to the feeling that they were very tired and ancient trees (and also that at any moment one could fall on our head!) I had a nice time taking photos of some of the little details around the palace, though. I think the little touches here and there like door knockers or the ends of the eaves are much more interesting after a while than the big picture. In the big picture all the buildings look the same, but focused in they’re more personal.
After making it through we were both completely drained of energy and starving! We ended up eating at a restaurant close to the city so a little more expensive, but still very good. We got eggplant yet again. I really love eggplant. And each time we’ve ordered it it’s been cooked differently so it doesn’t even feel like we’re eating it a lot. I also finally figured out that in our travel book eggplant is called aubergine. It’s a Brittish book and apparently they don’t call eggplant, eggplant. I think aubergine might also be French and Spanish since in Ecuador our hostel in Quito was L’Aubergine and had an eggplant by it. I’m learning so much about the world!
When we finally made it back to our hostel we turned up the air conditioner and I was asleep before Stephen made it back from the bathroom! I had a headache from all the sun and was just completely pooped out. Now it’s getting close to eight here and neither of us is hungry since we had such a late lunch, so we might not get dinner tonight. Maybe we’ll pick up a snack later if we need one. Tomorrow morning we go back to class, and I’m excited! Today we had the day off because of the holiday yesterday and we’re making up for it by having class this Saturday. We’re going to try to go to the Great Wall on Sunday since it’ll be our last full day in Beijing, unless we stay longer after the class is over. But we probably won’t unless we don’t make it to the wall on Sunday. There’s so much to see before going to Guilin. We have a rough itinerary of what we want to see planned out, so that’s good. But we’re flexible, as always.
We had to change rooms in our hostel since a group of eight had reservations for our room. It’s a bit of a bummer since our other room was so nice. This room is small and crowded with four sets of bunkbeds and it was a complete mess (and smelly) when we got in there. The source of the mess left this morning (we’ve stayed there two nights so far) and the other bunkmate moved to a different room, so we were able to clean up after his mess. I think the worse thing about all of his trash was that most of it was half full bottles of water. Such a waste. The big group is leaving on Wednesday and we’ve already arranged to move back to our old room. Even without the messy guy this room is still right in front of the check in area so we literally have to walk through people whenever we want to get in or out. It’s annoying. Especially in the morning when you’re half asleep and you have to walk through everyone to get to the bathroom. Oh well. Two more nights in the crappy room and then we move back to our nice big quiet room away from all of the hub bub.
Tags: Beijing, China, The Forbidden City
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