Aug 25

Breakfast- tried something new. The spirally things are just steamed dough, no filling. Oh, well. I dipped them like I would have dumplings, in the red lightly spiced sauce, mixed with vinegar. 

Tiananmen Square southern gate: Zhengyang Gate

Tiananmen sq: looking kind of stormy, but never a drop did fall. 

The Tiananmen- first gate into the Forbidden City

Two pillars greet you

And another pair inside

Second try for the Forbidden City.

I tried to use someone else's ticket they had purchased online for yesterday. Fail. After standing in line at the regular ticket purchasing booth, I was redirected to (via pointing to a little map of the Forbidden City in my Lonely Planet guide) the correct area for the line, which was also the wrong line, but at least I hadn't spent a lot of time in that line. Finally approaching the window I was told it was for the wrong day. BUT I handed the clerk my pre-prepared money and voilà, she sold me a ticket rather than making me go back to line 1.

The Fordidden City is as massive as the Summer palace, flatter, less interesting and even more crowded. I really liked the Summer Palace's lakeside setting, too. There were many of the same types of buildings, like the private opera stage for example, and the Summer Palace's example was in better shape. The Forbidden Palace had slightly nicer Rockeries, but it was much more difficult to get around, I think. The signage of each in english was comparable. 

From atop the outer wall

Hall of Literary Glory? After awhile all the halls and gates started looking alike. 

This must be where they are storing parts and pieces in preparation for some restoration project.

Outside the walls, on the other side of the moat. 

Hundreds of these vats are on the grounds. They held water for the purpose of putting out fires. The buildings look made of stone, but in fact the walls and roofs are mostly wood.

I have always loved ancient Chinese clay horses. This one is small and from the Tang Dynasty.

I also like looking at the gardens. These are called rockeries.

No signage, but pretty.

Imperial garden; many are rockeries and almost bonsi trees. Very calming, they have a great dimensionality (making up words now) that flower gardens lack. There was actually one regimented plant garden, but it looked too regimented for my tastes. 

The ubiquitous lion, but always fantastic when original. 

Steps up the sides for the litter bearers; the emperor rode in the litter suspended over the beautiful carvings in the middle, usually dragons. 

I totally did not photoshop that sky; Beijing on a low smog, overcast day. This is one of several sun dials. 

I think this is the first turtle I've seen, though the signage seemed to imply turtles were a regular symbol of the emperors. They used to place lit incense in the turtle's mouth, so it would look like its mouth was smoldering. Again with the sky.

I think we should totally add water spouts like this to our eaves.

So many thrones. I'm not sure if each new emperor got a new throne.

Nine Dragon Screen all done with glazed tiles. This might be better called a wall mural, but there are not many of these left, 3 in Beijing.

This would be an awesome sliding tile puzzle.

The omnipresent huge doors. Since they were all made of wood, fire was also omnipresent.

Door detail- it is interesting that the thresholds are almost always raised 8-10", even in people's ordinary dwellings.

Main throne/ receiving area

Paving around the tree roots turns them into works of art (accentuating nature's own artwork).

This was a form of entertainment; cups filled with wine were placed in water filled channels, flowing from water kegs hidden in rockeries nearby to the building. If the cup lodged next to you, you drank the wine. 

Rocks were imported and artistically placed. Trees were placed among them and trained into shape. 

Both carved from one piece of jade:

And

Close up:

The emperess was jealous of a favored concubine (25 yrs old), so she took power and had the young woman drowned in this well. Later, she felt the ghost was haunting her, so she had the body removed and buried in a plain grave. It is a pretty infamous story. 

Apparently the elephant was sculpted in the impossible position to show even elephants would bow to the emperor.

Love the "whiskers". 

5.5 hours and I'm back at the Meridian front gate. 

I went back looking for this exhibit of figurines. I doubt I saw everything of value to see, but was pretty shot at the end. 

There are many of these wells distributed around the compound. 

This again is the southern gate south of Tiananmen sq. (Front Gate- Arrow) It is one of my main landmarks. 

I saw this in the hostel and laughed. My daughter has this exact image as a sticker. The young lady was from Italy, but bought it from the same website. 

I fell asleep at 8pm. I didn't mean to, I was just closing my eyes for a second. Really. That second lasted 10 hours. 

Aug 24

I headed for the Forbidden City on my bike this morning, but was told I had to park the bike 1km away, which is almost as far away as the hostel, so I gave up on that for today. 

Instead I tried to retrace my steps and find the coffee shop I stumbled upon when I re-entered Beijing. Unfortunately, TrackMyTour lacks fidelity when posting a waypoint, so I had to travel back and forth to find it. When I finally located it at just before 9am, I did put in an edit request for Google maps. I realize the Chinese can't use google maps without a VPN, but foreigners can. 

Unfortunately, they didn't open until 10:00. A coffee shop. 10am. Just saying. It doesn't seem to stall its popularity a bit. When they did open, this was my second attempt to get a mocha, but instead I managed to get a drink that resembled sweet, watery spinach. Now I like spinach... but...

My third attempt this trip met with success. 

I also had Japanese curried rice with crispy chicken.  Unsure how authentic a curry would be for a dish, but tasty. It was relatively expensive at 75¥ or $12 US.  That and the "crepe" I had this morning held me for the day and dinner was 4 plums. 

Afterwards, I inefficiently zigzagged across the city to get interesting souvenirs. The zig zagging made me very happy, zooming along in chaotic traffic, often outpacing the scooters. At one point, my travels took me across this point. 

Every American or big European brand had a store in this area. 

I also came across this building, still under construction.