ZhongShan Park and The Forbidden City (中山公园和故宫)

Yesterday, I ventured to Tiananmen and decided to wander into the Forbidden City.

My first attempt was an epic fail. The Tiananmen gate has many entrances. The first one I tried went to some sort of garden thing. I found out later that I had stumbled upon ZhongShan Park. It's a park that was made in Sun Yat Sen's honor. I don't know who he was or what he did, but it was cute and had a lot of sweet buildings.

Here's the entrance to the garden. It's prettier in real life.


This isn't really significant in any way. The garden had a lot of these covered paths that you can walk on/in. There were also a lot of gates with really intricate painting (like you can see at the top).


This also isn't really significant. I think it's cute. I really like the roof.


Okay, I don't know if these rocks have any significance or not, but I think they do. I saw a lot of them in the garden. We also have one at my school that's mounted like it's a piece of art. These rocks are... pourus? I don't know if that's the best way to describe it because the "pores" would be super huge. The rocks have a lot of holes in them, though. And they're really big.


Here's a cute little open gate thing. There's not much more to say about it, except that it's cute. Can you see the couple walking down the path up ahead? That's cute too. :)


After walking around a little bit, I left the garden. In my second attempt to get to the Forbidden City, I just followed the crowd. I made it this time.

Here’s a map of the Forbidden City to help us through this.


To be perfectly honest, I don’t know much about Chinese history. I didn’t really know the significance of the Forbidden City until I skimmed through the Wikipedia article. And I still don’t really get it. There’s a lot of Harmony and Purity and Peace that I just don’t understand. However, I do know that the Forbidden City is historically significant and there are a lot of cool things to see if you like pretty buildings.

Here’s my take on it: you go through a TON of buildings which pretty much all look the same. It’s very big and you walk a lot. There are set-ups in some of the buildings so you can see what it was like to live there as an emperor during the Qing dynasty.

So I went through the Tiananmen gate (which is what I posted pictures of in my Tiananmen post). After the Tiananmen gate, there's another building that I had to go through. After the second building, I came out to a big open area with lots of people. I bought a ticket there. Before heading inside the Forbidden city, this was the building I had to go through.


The building was huge and it went around 3 sides (if that makes sense).



Here's a hobo who was looking through the trash and stuff in the same area. He was actually really cute and asian. I wish he had turned around for the picture.


So I get in and I have to walk over this nice little bridge.


I get on the bridge and walk forward a little bit and this is what I see! You should recognize this. This is, like, the epitome of China.


There were big lions in front of the building. I told you the lions were outside of a lot of entrances! I had to wait a long time to take a picture, and I still got this random guy in front of the lion. Oh wells.


The inside of that building is a touristy-type place. There's a lot of info on the Forbidden City and a couple little shops. I thought this was cool, though. Here's the ceiling.


After going through that building, I come out the other side and this is the next building:


There were quite a few of these things outside the building. I don't know what they're for, but they look pretty cool.


This is a close-up picture.


This was the inside of the building. It was closed off, so I couldn't go inside.


There's a lot of detailed work that you can't really see from far away. Here's part of the building close up. It's a couple of dragons.


Here's a big cauldron. There were a lot of these outside the building, too.


I can't remember where I took this, but this is what appears to be a bedroom.


Here are some more roofs. I really like them.


Here's some detailed stone carving.


Here's a dragon. It was just hanging out outside of a building like the lion.


Here's a cute little building that I saw towards the end of my Forbidden City adventure.


At the end of the Forbidden City, there's a little garden-type thing. I believe it's called the Imperial Garden. It's different than the garden I went to at the beginning. This one is much smaller. Here's the entrance to the garden.


Here's a cute little gazebo-type building that was in the garden.


After the Imperial Garden, I exited the Forbidden City and came out the other side. :) That's the end of my adventure.