The Forbidden City - 故宫

Aside from the Great Wall, the Forbidden City is THE most well visited place in Beijing. It is in the very center of the city and is the starting place for almost everything. It used to be the functioning palace for a long line of Mainland Emperors, and today it serves as a very impressive monument to the longevity of the Chinese mindset. 

 Every weekend these sightseeing attractions are filled with tourists from all over the world and China. Actually I was more impressed with the variety of Chinese tourists than anything else. There were actually quite a couple tour groups, and we had a fun time trying to eaves drop on the history and stories associated with the palace. 

 So this isn't just one building. In fact, the entire compound is somewhere around 20+ large palaces. It just made me wonder how they could possibly all be used. But hey, emperors need their amenities I guess. 

As can be expected, every corner of every building was inlaid with some form of decoration. Each separate 'palace' had a theme such as "heavenly harmony" or "celestial peace" etc. All of these decorations have been refurbished of course. 

 Wouldn't you like to have a throne room like this??

 Even the rafters in the main palaces had their own detailed architecture. 

 Out of all the fancy building and plazas, I enjoyed the palace garden the most. Every tree was at least 300 years old and had a nice ancient gnarled look to it. We went on a week were most of the flowers were in bloom so it really helped us soak up the atmosphere of the place. 

 These large urns were actually located all over the palace ground and were one of the only safety measures against fires in ancient times. From what I understand, there were frequent fires on the palace grounds (due to the main construction material being wood) and the servants would use these cisterns as places to draw emergency water from. 

 We didn't get to go the the top of the 'mountain' on this trip. I guess it will give me something to do later on. However, LOOK  at all those people, AND the cowboy hat. 

Springtime

For all effective purposes, springtime has officially arrived in northeast China. This means better weather, fresh produce, more stuff to do, and cherry blossoms everywhere. It almost feels like a different city without the ridiculously cold wind. 

I have found out that one of my new favorite things to do is go around the city and find the best open air markets available. Beijing is huge and obviously this many people need a huge amount of food, which means that there are more opportunities to go see really fancy and exotic feeling 'open-air' markets. 

In fact, I recently went with my Indonesian classmate to a classic Indonesian open-air market. They had everything. fruits, vegetables, fish, dried fruits, and even specialty items. I found out that if you want a specific food item in the city, such as a certain brand of cereal, then your only chance of finding it will be at these specialty markets or a very western, and expensive food mart. 

Speaking of food, I thought I would mention the above restaurant -Peter's-. It is a pretty authentic TexMex place in East Beijing. I think it is an unavoidable tradition that after Thursday night Small Group, everyone heads over to Peter's to grab a burrito, milkshake or whatever. It is always a really good time. For me it is pretty surreal to 'escape' the Beijing atmosphere and just eat a couple tacos. Go figure. 

With springtime in Beijing comes a lot more outdoor activities. Unlike the Winter where you would rather just stay inside, the Spring in the city allows for some rather nice scenery and good chance to experience life here. The above picture is from a public park in central Beijing. The International Student Center here at BIT planned this trip to show us the famous Japanese cherry blossoms that bloom all at once like clockwork. I think we arrived a bit too early in the season to see the best of the park, but it was still nice to walk around and chat with the other international students. 

I thought I would mention this. Above, we have a random group of rather elderly people gathered on the edge of the lake singing. If you look closely you might even see that they have a band with them. From what I gathered they are singing ancient Chinese songs form several hundred years ago. Don't ask me what for- I have no clue, but that is what they are doing, and it actually sounded pretty good. The cadence and pitch that they sing with is impressive and even lets them be heard on the other side of the huge lake.

As anyone in the city knows, this season in China means more than sight-seeing and better weather; it means that the crowds are huge and traveling on the weekend is a big hassle. After a rather long winter, everyone in Beijing is ready to get out and go shopping, traveling, etc. Effectively, this means that every weekend or holiday all of the subways and buses are packed. For me, even though this is really inconvenient, this makes sense. The city has 20+ million people  and they all want to be outside doing whatever. 

But, even through the crowds there are still plenty of things to see. Little glimpses of city life shine through, and for the most part one is able to really enjoy a day out in the market or hanging out with classmates.

慕田峪- MuTianYu- The Great Wall

So we went to the Great Wall on our holiday off school. Actually, I went with a lot of great people from BICF and we had a time of it. This is our wonderful lift up to the top. It was early in the morning when we arrived so the weather was perfect. Not too chilly and not blazing either. 

Most of the Great Wall is built on a series of mountain ranges. This was a strategic point so that the natural topography would aid the Qing and Ming dynasties in keeping out the Siberian Hordes. Also, makes for great picture taking. :)

Our fancy group from BICF had a VERY interesting cast of characters. We have people from Texas, Montana, Cali, and Hong Kong. So we have some interesting conversations and almost never run out of topics to talk about. 

The entire Great Wall is over 8000 km long (5,500 mi). But it is not very well known that the Wall is actually not continuous. Because it was such a large project it has been built by several dynasties and has been rebuilt and maintained since the 5th century.(source: Wikipedia) 

 Actually MuTianYu is one of the better preserved portions of the wall and really brings home the grandeur of the whole thing. It really took a lot to build this. 

 This section of the wall is basically built through a forest so there is a really nice amount of scenery to take in. We happened to show up on a day when the flower trees were blooming a  nice pink and purple hue. 

 Eventually I took it upon my self to climb the entire 3 km of our wall section. That might not seem too much, but let me assure you that it was enough. Most of these stairs were very steep and while a blast to go on, they were also really tall. Did I mention how steep they were?

 I have arrived alone and victorious, or something like that!

 You can't really tell from the pictures but after a thousand years or so the stairs weren't as straight as they used to be. Thus, walking up and down them gave a weird sense of imbalanced vertigo. I can't really explain it , so I guess you will just have to come see it for yourself.