JOURNEY TO THE FORBIDDEN CITY

 

After a night's sleep, we were ready to tackle sightseeing.  

Our morning began with a visit to Tiananmen Square, site of what Stanley called "the incident" and the rest of us called "the massacre." It is the largest public square in the world.

Mao's tomb is at one corner of the Square, but not as dominant as one might expect it to be.

 

The central element in the Square is the Monument to Heroes.

From Tiananmen Square you can see the Forbidden City, with the gate guarded by a picture of Mao.

 

Our trip through the Forbidden City began in what would become a familiar way--often losing sight of Stanley but always looking for the San Diego Zoo sign waving ahead of us. The sign drew lots of stares and comments from locals and other tourists, and after a while we felt like the zoo animals.

 

In addition to the picture of Mao, the gate had a more traditional guardian as well.

The corners of the buildings (both in the Forbidden City and elsewhere in China) usually had figures on them which Ed promptly dubbed "Santa and his reindeer" figures. They are intended as guardians.

 

Throughout the Forbidden City there are carvings of fantastical animals and figures.

 

There is also a series of canals

The Forbidden City was full of tour groups, so keeping up with that Zoo sign was important--and sometimes challenging. As a precaution, Stanley gave us his cell phone number. "If you get lost," he told us, "look for a guide who is with people like you--long noses, blond hair and blue eyes. You can ask him to call me." No one ever had to call him, but it was comforting to have all the same.

And there were steps. . .and more steps. . .

 
   

Pat was especially impressed with the level of detail in the architecture, the glowing colors, and the care with which everything was maintained.

 
The Emperor's Throne Room

The ancient Chinese thought of the Earth as square and the Heavens as round, so the square-on-round motif is common, as in this jade disk.

 
We saw many, many pairs of lions guarding gates and doors--female (with the cub under her paw) on the right and male (with the globe under his paw) on the left (because, we were told by a female guide, "in China the female is always right"). What we never figured out was how they decided which was left and which was right in a doorway.