Toady, Sunday February 17th, we went to tour Forbidden City! We entered from the Tiananmen Gate, across the street from Tiananmen square. The gate has a big picture of Chairman Mao on it. It is where he used to address the nation and watch the military parades occurring in the square. We worked our way through Forbidden city from the outer courtyard, where the emperors used to perform public ceremonies and rituals, and attend to matters of the state, to the inner private courtyard, where the emperors lived their daily life with their relatives, court, and concubines.
The tour progressed from the amazingly large scale halls of the outer courtyard (Hall of Supreme Harmony and Hall of Preserving Harmony) to the incredibly intimacy of the inner courtyard. The iner courtyard gardens were especially impressive - even without anything really growing in them in the off season. In additional to touring the main forbidden city, we also went on some interesting side tours. We went up into the Tiananmen gate and saw the rooms where foreign dignitaries were received. We toured the East Palaces which now host a number of exhibits. We were also able to see the Gallery of treasures which had a number of items from every day use through the ages in the city. And finally we toured the museum of clocks and watches. The emperors were obsessed with measuring everything - especially the passing of time. The collection included a number of very ornate clocks. My 3 favorite were the clock with "A European dressed robot writing 8 Chinese characters", a chariot clock pulled by an elephant with a large number of warriors, propelled around a circular track, and a water based clock which had to be at least 20 feet tall. It told time by having water drip from chamber to chamber - causing indicators to float and point to the current 15 minute, hour, and day.
Check out all the photos here!
Toady, Sunday February 17th, we went to tour Forbidden City! We entered from the Tiananmen Gate, across the street from Tiananmen square. The gate has a big picture of Chairman Mao on it. It is where he used to address the nation and watch the military parades occurring in the square. We worked our way through Forbidden city from the outer courtyard, where the emperors used to perform public ceremonies and rituals, and attend to matters of the state, to the inner private courtyard, where the emperors lived their daily life with their relatives, court, and concubines.
The tour progressed from the amazingly large scale halls of the outer courtyard (Hall of Supreme Harmony and Hall of Preserving Harmony) to the incredibly intimacy of the inner courtyard. The iner courtyard gardens were especially impressive - even without anything really growing in them in the off season. In additional to touring the main forbidden city, we also went on some interesting side tours. We went up into the Tiananmen gate and saw the rooms where foreign dignitaries were received. We toured the East Palaces which now host a number of exhibits. We were also able to see the Gallery of treasures which had a number of items from every day use through the ages in the city. And finally we toured the museum of clocks and watches. The emperors were obsessed with measuring everything - especially the passing of time. The collection included a number of very ornate clocks. My 3 favorite were the clock with "A European dressed robot writing 8 Chinese characters", a chariot clock pulled by an elephant with a large number of warriors, propelled around a circular track, and a water based clock which had to be at least 20 feet tall. It told time by having water drip from chamber to chamber - causing indicators to float and point to the current 15 minute, hour, and day. Check out all the photos here!
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