in addition to the hike up the wall, i also wandered thru the Forbidden City and Tian'anmen Square.
located in the center of beijing, the Forbidden City is HUGE. it has 90 palaces and courtyards, 980 buildings, and over 8,000 rooms.
and since it sits on 72 hectares of land, it's the largest palace complex in the world.
apparently it was not meant for ordinary people (i.e. people like me), and thus forbidden. those found trespassing were beheaded.
and since the current government sits in the same area, nowadays trespassers are just shot...***
just south of the city is tian'anmen square, which literally means gate of heavenly peace.which is kinda ironic considering it's probably most well remembered as the place protesters faced off w/a tank...
on either side it's flanked w/the national library and the parliament building. on the south end of it is mao's moselium.
***
the funniest part about this whole visit was the girl from baltimore who was on the tour w/me. she commented on how young i looked in kind of a i'm-obviously-older-than-you-little-kid sort of way. i think i could be her aunt.
No comments:
Post a Comment