Seeing the Sites: Day 1

Day 1: The Forbidden City

The Forbidden City, situated in the very heart of Beijing, was home to 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The construction of the grand palace started in the fourth year of Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty (1406), and ended in 1420. In ancient times, the emperor claimed to be the son of Heaven, and therefore Heaven’s supreme power was bestowed upon him. The emperors’ residence on earth was built as a replica of the Purple Palace where God was thought to live in Heaven. Such a divine place was certainly forbidden to ordinary people and that is why the Forbidden City is so named. For more info Click here (I copied and pasted...got to love short cuts!)
Four Coleman boys, their wives...and Celine out side the city.
Nine is a special number to the Chinese, being the greatest of single-digit numbers, was historically associated with the Emperor of China. So on this door there are 9 knobs by 9 knobs.
Lots of lions everywhere...they are suppose to look ferocious...but I kind of think they are cute...not to say I'd like to put one on my night stand...but you know. This one had spiky hair...it reminded me of Matt's hair in the morning.
Almost all of the main buildings had 3 door ways and walkways to get to them. The middle walkway was always ornately decorated for this was the one the only the Emperor was to walk on.
So get this...one of the Empresses had all of this porous rock imported from somewhere so she could build a building on it...you have to climb a very steep walkway to get up there.
This is a view of one of the court yards.
Beautiful architecture. When they found out that China was going to host the Olympics they started to restore many of the historical sites...this one included. But the place is so big that they are STILL in the process of it. These people do not take many short cuts....mostly everything is done by hand.

The entire day was hot and we spent the majority of it walking all over the city. We cooled off by enjoying some mystery Popsicles....they are mysterious because they kind of taste like bananas...but not quite...China definitely challenged our taste buds...sometimes we just needed to appreciate that the food tasted good...and not necessarily try to pin point what it tasted like...especially their Popsicles...which random people sold EVERYWHERE ...prices ranging from 1 RMB to 5 RMB (7 RMB is equivalent to 1 American dollar)...but I'll get into this more in a later post.

After a very hot and jet lagged day of walking we went and ate dinner...then geared up for more. Dad Coleman guided us to this amazing look out point. 200 and something stairs later (Celine would know exactly she counted them all) we were all awestruck by the amazing view.

I had made it all the way up with my boot...but I hadn't figured out yet how to get down so.....

I hitched a ride with Dave. I didn't know until we were half way down that He has bad knees...I felt bad...but what a gentleman!! The ride was greatly appreciated.


Okay that's it for now....You'll probably all be sick of these posts after a while....but I'm going to keep them coming!!!