Day 5

Today our tour officially began and we headed off early this morning on foot to the Forbidden City, so called because it was off limits to ordinary citizens for 500 yrs, the entrance to which is right opposite Tiannamen Square which at about 8.30am was already teeming with people. There were huge crowds converging on the entrance to the Forbidden City and we surged forward with the crowd of mostly chinese tourists, millions of them.
We entered the Forbidden City which takes up approx 72 hectares and was home to only one man, the emporer who had many wives,or concubines, six levels of concubines headed up by the Empress and there were many eunuchs. Twenty four emperors from two dynasties ruled here, the Ming and Qing (pronounced Ching). There are no trees or shrubs within the walls of the Forbidden City, no where for your enemies to hide if they got in. The city was surrounded by a very large moat so unlikely anyone could get in any way. The ornate and brightly coloured buildings had yellow roofs, only the emperor was allowed a yellow roof, the walls were red which is a lucky colour, green for the harvest and blue for the heavenly god.
We were not able to enter any of the buildings we had to look through doorways or in the case of rooms with furnishings through glass windows. We saw beautiful brocade bedspreads in gold and red and beautiful blue Ming vases in glass cases.
We walked from the East gate to the West gate stopping to look only at the most significant buildings as there are 800 buildings. In each of the courtyards are these huge brass incense burners, nearly 400 of them in total. Some of the courtyards were on several levels and the balastrading on each level had dragons and drainage holes through the dragons mouth, so when it rains water pours from the mouth of the dragon.
We spent several hours in the Forbidden City with millions of Chinese tourists who took a great interest in the Western tourists and we frequently found ourselves being photographed.
After lunch at a local restaurant we visited the Summer Palace and thought we might escape the crowds but no such luck. The summer palace sits alongside the Kumning Lake which was full of dragon headed boats taking tourists for a ride around the lake. We visited the hall of benevolence and longevity that you could only peer in unfortunately, at the hardwood throne. The courtyard is adorned with bronze animals, dragons and lions and some mythical creatures. We walked along the long corridor, about 2 kms long, which is adorned with paintings on the cross beams. The structure itself is painted in red, green and blue. The nearby hills and slopes are decorated with temples and as we left the Summer Palace we saw the marble boat.
Our final stop for the day was the Olympic site and a look at the birdsnest building.

Tonight we walked downtown and went to a famous peking duck restaurant and of course had peking duck. This restaurant has been operating since the mid 1800’s and currently serves up 300 ducks a day and they have 5 restaurants selling over 400 ducks every day. After dinner we went for a wander downtown and for a stroll past the street full of street stalls selling all sorts of food on sticks. Meat, fish, fruit, whatever you can put on a stick. The stalls were very colourful with their red lanterns swinging in the breeze and the uniformed staff in their red and white uniforms.