The Forbidden City, the former Imperial compound, covers a vast area in the center of Beijing. Just outside it is a large garden with a tower commanding beautiful views. After walking through and looking at a couple of the exhibits Kate and Lin headed there while I stayed to linger over more exhibits and artifacts of daily life, as well as examine the sumptuous detail of the buildings and sculptures.
I wandered around for most of the day, taking it all in and imagining what life might have been like for its original residents.
Turtle in front of one of the buildings of the Forbidden City
Detail of door, Forbidden City
Detail from building, Forbidden City
This is made easier by the well thought-out exhibits: especially in the case of every-day objects they showed not only the objects themselves, but had a good explanation of their importance, as well as illustrations of concubines showing them with the objects displayed.
Bed with bed curtains in the Forbidden City
Just as I thought I had found all of the exhibits and was about to make my way to the exit, I stumbled across another whole section, with its own (small) entrance fee. This was the ‘Treasure Room’ and it included most of the ‘crown jewels’ and the gemstone ‘mountains’.
Imperial Crown
Imperial crown
Jade Terrace
In the same compound were various shops, including a calligraphy shop where the nephew of the last emperor came to exercise his skill most days. I ended up buying several scroll paintings– one purportedly in support of art students and the other in a shop which claimed to be raising funds for renovating the small garden within the compound.
As interesting as the exhibits and architecture were I found just as fascinating the current life within the Forbidden City: It had snowed in the night before our visit and what seemed like an army of maintenance people were out in force with shovels, piling the snow into small, bicycle powered ‘dump trucks’.
Snow removal inside the Forbidden City