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

Tianamen Square and the forbidden city

The square is BIG. It seems to be a meeting place/tourist focus/Security forces obsession. It's also the place where some pretty unhappy events took place not too long ago, though the world seems to have forgotten and moved on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989

The streets leading to it are wide and have that communist era scale. Mao looks down on all of it from his memorial, which you pass through to get to the Forbidden city. The Square is enclosed by the People's Hall, National Museum, and Mao

I have to profess ignorance as to who this guy is, but he certainly enjoys a pride of place.

When you leave the square, and pass underneath Mao, you go through a gate, and everyone rubs the knobs for good luck. Being 6ft4 I was able to reach way up and rub the knobs for tall people. Lots of pointing and laughter.

The Forbidden city seems to go on and on. Built over 500 years ago (some parts earlier, some later), it is quite a trek but well worth it.

You get the idea.

The only place you can get a cup of coffee in the forbidden city is here........ Starbucks . Its power is ominpotent.

Lots of pics and not alot of text. I'll add my thoughts of China in general in my next post.

Hope all is well.

T