Forbidden City

Welcome to the Forbidden City, (紫禁城) just north of Tiananmen Square, which was the home of the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties in China. The city is massive and boasts at least 9,999 rooms (9 is a number reserved for the Emperor), and is the largest such palace complex in the world. Most of the buildings here were the lucky color red with the imperial color yellow reserved for the rooftops. It took quite a while to traverse the Forbidden City and many of the exhibits housed inside.

The majority of these photos were taken by Jeremy, since it was raining that day and many of my photos came out very dark and foggy. As you can see, he did a fantastic job with taking photographs amidst sporadic torrential downpour.

One of the canals in the Forbidden City

I really loved the bas-relief sculptures in front of a lot of the palaces. They were quite gorgeous.

My favorite part of the Forbidden City was its garden, which was filled with a number of curious sites, including this temple atop a rock formation that is apparently habitable. Unfortunately, we could not go inside, but I was especially intrigued by the sign above, which explained that "A single act of carelessness leads to the eternal loss of beauty," an interesting, yet poignant, proverb to introduce the building for sure. If anyone can read the Chinese characters and could provide me with a better translation of that proverb, it would be much appreciated.

I could have stared at this building forever. I've seen far more beautiful temples during my travels, but I found it hard to peel myself away, and kept wondering what I would find inside if I was permitted to enter. Would it merely be a dank cave-like room or would it be all decked out in the fineries fit for an emperor? Whether it is a testament to my love of weirdness or my becoming tired of red and yellow buildings at this point, the world may never know.

One of the main Forbidden City imperial palaces

On the left, one of the massive doors of the palaces. The number of gold knobs signifies how important the building is; Chinese enjoy rubbing them for good luck. On the right, one of the pretty, pretty buildings in the Forbidden City gardens.

Really cool doorways within the Forbidden City, and oh yeah, I do love me some Forbidden City Starbucks. It was really strange to find a two-table Starbucks within the ancient walled-in city and apparently the Chinese don't want to advertise it (all signs point to "Coffee Shop") and the baristas will not allow you to take photos inside the shop, but whatever. I sipped my tall black coffee among the ruins, as I'm sure the emperors would have approved. Alas, if only it were a Dunkin' Donuts.

The well on the left is apparently where the concubine and Emperess Dowager Cixi drowned one of her concubine rivals, so it was appropriate that a 魔女 such as me should pose while cackling gleefully at the tragic drowning. Just kidding. I'm a good person, seriously. Just ask the lions.