Forbidden City in the Winter

Greetings from a very snowy and bitterly cold Beijing.

My parents and I made the trek to the Forbidden City to see what was on offer and the snow and wet made things pretty hard going.

The light was very grey and I think most of these pictures are pretty flat despite my best efforts to coax a bit of life using Lightroom from the RAW image files.

Even the soldiers looked pissed off.

I've been to the Forbidden City a few times before but never when the white stuff was in such abundance. I had high hopes for some dramatic pictures but as you can see everything seemed a bit "blah".

The complex is HUGE and dates back to the Ming Dynasty (1402) and consists of a staggering 980 buildings.

Its the world's largest surviving palace.

Though interesting in winter I think it deserves a glorious summer's day to do it justice and you can get a glimpse of that here (there ARE other pictures lurking somewhere in this blog but I can't be bothered to run down the inks- its getting really late!)

Man that's making me cold just looking at it.

My parents have just spent the past two weeks on a cruise around Vietnam and Southern China and as a consequence were a little under-dressed for the weather. The "wrong" shoes in slushy snow results in shivers and a day cut short. We went on an expedition this evening for boots, scarves and gloves so tomorrow's trip to the Great Wall should be a little more comfortable.

I have loads more funny tidbits from China Daily but they'll have to wait for another day. I hope everyone reading has a great Thursday wherever you may be.

Tomorrow "To the Wall!" regardless of the elements.

Love to all and stay well.

T