After the Great Wall the other famous attraction in Beijing is the Forbidden city, forbidden no more and today basking in glorious sunshine. Its a year today until the start of the Olympics. There is a huge display planned for Tienanmen sq this evening, so it seems from what we have heard that the government put into play its pollution busting tactics. This involved taking 1 million cars of the road, shutting down factories and seeding the clouds with I have no idea what, to disperse them. Compare this to the photo I took at the start of the week and you would think its a different city.
The Forbidden city is an amazing set of buildings that are slowly being restored to their former glory, you can easily spend several hours just wondering round admiring the architecture. There's supposed to be a Starbucks in here but we couldn't find it, instead we wondered across a pretty interesting clock museum. A palace this size required quite a few clocks and the most spectacular now have their own museum. This dimly lit hall was a haven from the crowds and with its air con on full power, also the heat.
Above: Two Chinese dragons guard the entrance to one of the halls. Below: Inside one of the halls, what you don't see is the crowd I had to barge through to take this picture
Some interesting facts about the city:
The Forbidden City is the largest palace complex in the world. In comparison with other palaces around the world, the Forbidden City occupies 720,000 square meters. The Topkapi Palace in Istanbul measures 700,000 square meters, the Vatican measures 440,000 square meters and the Kremlin measures 275,000 square meters.
Using 200,000 laborers, the main part of the Forbidden City was constructed from 1407 to 1420 during the Ming Dynasty. Many of the building supplies and materials were shipped to Beijing from all over China via its canals constructed in the 6th and 7th centuries.
The Forbidden City palaces contain 999 buildings and 9,999 rooms. (Nine is a lucky number to the Chinese.)
All the buildings are made of painted wood. Giant bronze cauldrons filled with water are placed throughout the palace in case of fire.
Below: Tienanmen Square, this time without the smog
Highlights: Fantastic weather showing the Forbidden City in all its glory
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