Beijing's Forbidden City

In the heart of the major cosmopolitan ultra-urban city of Beijing lies the Forbidden City. It was the palace of two dynasties (the Ming and the Qing), and was off limits to anyone but the emperors and their subjects. In fact, when the emperor or his family entered or exited the palace the locals even had to close their windows, so that they would not lay eyes on the royals. The palace has a long history and has seen its fair share of destruction (during revolutions and war) and restoration during different periods. I won't go too much more into the history, because this isn't a history lesson.

The palace was fascinating though. It contained so much history (some of the relics were from as far back as 200 BC), culture, and technology (the astronomical device int he picture above is from the 1600s-ish). The best part for me was the names of the halls and courts. For example, the southern gate was named "Divine Military Genius Gate" and another was named "Supreme Harmony Gate". There were also a few halls that made us chuckle, like "Palace of Enjoying Nurture" and the "Palace of Tranquil Longevity". They did use names which explained the significance of the location though, like the "Chamber of Literary Grace" and the "Hall of Mental Cultivation".

Of course, the day we visited it was raining like crazy and it was incredibly cold. I'm surprised that we made it as long as we did. But the place was so awe inspiring and interesting, we couldn't drag ourselves away either.