Beijing - Part 1: Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square

This little Chinese boy was so adorable marching around the Forbidden City in his tiger hat and his flag of China! :)

Beijing was my favorite stop on our China trip and also the one we stayed at the longest - 6 days in total! There was lots to see and do in our 6 days there and most of my pics came from this lag of my trip. The weather was FREEZING in Beijing and they had record setting low temperatures while we were there! It even snowed the last couple of days! I have to admit, I loved seeing and feeling the snow again. What can I say, you can take a girl out of Canada, but you can't take the Canada out of a girl - although apparently my tolerance for cold air temperatures has clearly been taken! LOL Anyways, on with the pics!

The first full day we spent exploring the Forbidden City. It was literally only 2 blocks from our hotel, so we walked! :) The gates into it are huge, as are the grounds! It is the largest palace in the world - contains 9,999 rooms within it's gates. We did not explore ALL of the rooms, but we did see a fair chunk of the palace grounds. The Forbidden City was started in 1407AD and completed in 1420AD. We were told by our guide, Linda, that there were a million workers brought in to build it.

The Meridian Gate.........only the Emperor was allowed to enter/exit through the centre door.

The view from the other side, once we passed though......you can see the 5 bridges leading over the Inner Golden Water River.

The original cobblestone/brick.......it's definitely seen some wear and tear over the years!

This is the Hall of Supreme Harmony.....

Seeing as there are SOOOO many other halls and gates throughout the Forbidden City that look almost exactly the same, I'll save you the boredom and not post all of them. LOL Here are some random shots.

So in a nutshell, that was the Forbidden City.......from there we walked across the main street to Tiananmen Square. Here's the famous Tiananmen Gate, with Mao Zedong's gigantic picture above it. This gate was also originally built in the 1400s.

Here's the gate lit up at night.....snapped this as we were driving past in a taxi! :) It's kind of blurry, but gives you an idea of what it looked like. :)

On the west side of this massive square, is the Great Hall of the People where the National People's Congress still meets to discuss parliamentary issues.

On the east side is the National Museum of China.

This is the National Monument to the People's Heroes, and was finished being built in 1958 to honour the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the Chinese people during various revolutions.

Me being a dorky tourist again!

A guard on-duty outside of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall (Mao's Mausoleum) - we tried to go in twice, but both times it was closed. :(

This is one of a pair of really neat sculptures right outside the entrance to Mao's mausoleum. I love the detail on the faces. :)

Ok, Part 1 of Beijing is complete........Part 2 should be posted in the next day or two!