Forbidden City and Downtime

The Forbidden City (or Palace Museum as it is now called) is a nice 15 minute walk away from our hotel, so it made sense for that to be our first visit in Beijing. It's quite something to see it on TV, but the palace really has to be visited in person to grasp the size of it all.
The whole forbidden city is surrounded by this huge wall (3.4km in length)
And a moat to keep intruders away
Inside the palace is a variety of buildings and beautiful decorative features
Some buildings and open spaces were used for state affairs
While others were used for the more personnal needs of the emperor
The palace also features a clock museum
And the retirement quarters have been turned into a gallery of precious artifacts such as these valuable seals
Everywhere I looked was beautiful decorations like this colored porcelain wall
There's also some beautiful gardens
And fantastic looking buildings to relax in
There's big walls dividing the various sections of the palace. We were explained by a friendly volunteer that access was restricted to most of the palace to women and eunuch (castrated males) to prevent questions about paternity of the empress and concubine's offspring. Eunuchs held prestigious positions in government and were greatly rewarded with prestige and treasure but at what cost!!!

The forbidden city is an amazing way to spend a day. I'm glad we went during a weekday, I can't imagine how busy it gets on the weekends!
After the visit to the Forbidden City, I wasn't feeling so well, coming down with a mild fever, headache and cough. It must be something I caught on the plane or just general tiredness. I went back to the hotel for a nap while Alex explored the shopping district at Wangfujing. He forgot the camera so no pictures but we'll be back for sure, it sounds like a wonderful place to spend an evening. I'm much better this morning. We hope to make it to Tian'anmen square today and then the zoo to see the pandas!