Beijing - Day 3: Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City

I had no idea the Forbidden City was so huge. I expected that of Tiananmen Square, billed as the largest public square in the world, but the Forbidden City was a surprise.

When visiting Beijing and vicinity, the two most iconic sights are Tiananmen Square-Forbidden City and the Great Wall. OK, there are 13,000 miles of Great Wall, but the best preserved and easiest to visit are sections close to Beijing--but that is tomorrow's story.

At 100 acres, Tiananmen Square can accommodate a million people. Once the "front door" to the Forbidden Palace, it is now surrounded by the Great Hall of the People, Mao Zedong's mausoleum, and other buildings and monuments (and a great bed of flowers).

We're in Tiananmen Square, facing north toward the Forbidden City. The crowds, we were told, were relatively modest that morning. Right: The Monument to the Revolutionary Struggle.

Left: The Zhengyangmen Gate Tower, on the south side of the square. This once was part of the city wall. Right: Somehow the "Old Bank Building" survives with some new purpose on the southwest corner of the square.

Left: The Great Hall of the People, on the west side of the square. Right: The Monument to the People's Heroes, a 124 foot tall obelisk, and the National Museum of China.

The Mao Zedong Memorial Hall. Right: The square sported an impressive and immaculately maintained bed of flowers.

There were many children visiting the square. The young lady on the right eagerly took our picture.

More sights in the square. We were cautioned to take only quick, distant photos of soldiers. All that we saw were trim, immaculately dressed and serious.

The Gate of Heavenly Peace with a smiling Mao on the north end of the square. This gate is actually only a first entry point leading to the true southern entry to the Forbidden City, the Meridian Gate.

We entered the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City, now called the Palace Museum. Within it are 980 buildings and 9,999 rooms. (Some sources claim there are "only" 8886 rooms. I stopped counting at about 10.) It’s all protected by a moat and a 32-foot wall. From the southern entrance, featuring a grand portrait of Mao, we exited an hour later through the Gate of Divine Might, exhausted, and two-thirds of a mile north of our starting point.

It was during the Ming dynasty that the capital of China moved from Nanking to Beijing in 1406. (Beijing had been the capital earlier under the Mongols, then called Dadu.) The Forbidden city was constructed between 1406 and 1420, using one million workers. It remained the home and governing center of both the Ming and Qing dynasties until the abdication of the last emperor, Pu Yi, in 1912. Pu Yi remained in residential quarters in the Forbidden City until evicted in 1924.

While many of the treasures of the Forbidden City were removed and relocated to Taiwan by Chiang Kai-shek's forces, the palace remained remarkedly undamaged during the various wars and revolutions of the 20th century. Even during the destructive Cultural Revolution, a battalion of troops were sent to the city by Chou Enlai to protect it.

We entered through a tunnel leading to the south entrance. Left: Rubbing the door knobs surely brings the good luck promised. Right: I caught the soldieers in a moment of non-cordinated motion. Even from a distance, I'm not sure the one guard was pleased with my picture taking.

Right: Outside the Meridian Gate. Right: The gate is actually a complex. Left: We approach the inner gate.

All the halls and palaces and temples had names such as the Hall of Complete Harmony, the Hall of Preserving Harmony, the Palace of Heavenly Purity and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. I would fail any attempt to match pictures with the proper names.

I finally got a picture of a couple where both are in costumes. I'm talking about the couple on the right.

Turtle and cistern

Right: The Dragon pavement, a carved, solid marble slab of 250 tons leading to the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The slab was moved from its origin to this location in the winter on a road paved with ice.

A few more pictures of temples:

We exited the Forbidden City at its northern end.

Left: The moat that surrounds the Forbidden City. Right: Perched on a hill overlooking the City is the pavilion of Everlasting Spring. It would have been a good panoramic view of the Forbidden City from that location but, alas, there was no time for that.

The day ended with another meal in the hotel restaurant, where we used out last coupon. We had the best hot and sour soup we have had in our lives. No exaggeration. Another of our travel companions said the same thing independently. 

Only one full day left, but what a day we expect it to be, a visit to the Great Wall of China..