China, Beijing 6 (culture and grub)

October 20, 2010: After the late-night adventures of the past few days, I was in the mood for some classic culture again. For today I had booked a tour of the Forbidden City and other sights in Beijing. Our first stop was the legendary and truly enormous Forbidden City. Each emperor lived in this huge complex, said to have 9999 rooms, together with his wife, more than 3000 concubines and countless eunuchs.

Luckily we had an experienced tour guide, so we got into the Forbidden City through the back entrance without any waiting and came out again at the front. Even though the weather wasn’t that great, the place was swarming with tourists queuing for hours.

Above the main entrance at the front hangs what is probably the most photographed picture in China: Mao Zedong’s portrait.

Directly opposite the Forbidden City lies the huge Tian’anmen Square, scene of some memorable events. Since I want my site to stay accessible from China, I’m afraid I can’t go into any detail…

Next up was the Temple of Heaven.

The Temple of Heaven is surrounded by a large park. Mornings and evenings, lots of Chinese people meet there to exercise or simply to play games. I’d have really fancied a round of Chinese chess in that laid-back atmosphere. Unfortunately the tour schedule was very tight, so there was no time for that.

At a „pearl factory“ we learned more about where pearls come from and how easy it is to tell real pearls from fake ones.

Last of all we visited the Summer Palace. The palace itself and the huge grounds around it were built purely for the personal entertainment of past rulers and today serve as a tourist magnet. Why wasn’t the Forbidden City good enough back then? Well, it got too hot there in summer, so they needed a new playground in a slightly cooler corner of Beijing. In the picture you can see the Seventeen-Arch Bridge (left) and the Summer Palace (right).

We crossed the lake by boat to the Summer Palace itself.

Now culturally up to speed, I met up with my couchsurfing host in the evening and we went to Wafujing Street – or, more precisely, we tracked down a new snack corner there. True to my motto, „I eat everything except licorice“, I worked my way through lots of interesting dishes… ;)