The Inner Ring

Thursday, April 26, 2018
Beijing, Beijing, China
Smoggy 26 C.
We had an early start with a big day planned to visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. After our smorgasbord of delights for breakfast, we met our guide Angie this morning at 8 am and boarded our bus for today armed with name tag, ear piece and microphone.
Angie talks constantly, but she is informative, polite and entertaining. We will have her for the duration of our 2 week holiday here in China. Our first lesson in Chinese was to say Hello “Nǐ hǎo”. She tells us about the layout of the city of Beijing, it is structured in a series of circles or ring roads with the inner most being Tiananmen Square, not really a circle?? The closer you live to the inner circle, the more expensive as this is the centre of Beijing.
We arrived at Tiananmen Square and walked through the square which can hold 1 million people. We saw the Mausoleum where Mao Zedong body is laid to rest along with the huge queue of people waiting to enter to see his body. The Monument to the Peoples Hero had a constant flow of School Children marching up and down the stairs and saluting as they changed guard. On another side of the Square is the National Museum of China. We then walked towards the Gate of Heavenly Peace which separates the Square from the Forbidden City. This building has Mao’s photo on it.
Passing through the gate we are now moving towards the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City served as the home of emperors and their households as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government for almost 500 years. It was the former Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty the years 1420 to 1912 and it now houses the Palace Museum.
It seems to go on and on, we pass through one building after another, while hearing about the history of the Emperors and their concubines. A very interesting day. We finally pass into the garden area of the Palace, some of the trees are over 300 years old.
We reboarded the bus after about 3.5 hrs and went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. Returning to the Hotel by 2.30pm we went for a walk around the adjoining buildings looking for a shopping complex but all we found were some very upmarket shops, no customers and no prices displayed.
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Comments

Susan
2018-04-29

Keeping up to day with your travels. Looks a bit hazy (to be expected). Chris in getting into lots of the photos!

2025-02-11

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