Beijing: Favorite Shots of the Forbidden City

Beijing, December 2011

Last time I visited Beijing was about 20 years ago. Yup, that long. Therefore I was curious about how it looks now after 2 decades. I gazed from the plane window and noticed that the city has grown unrecognisable, packed with buildings.

Ni hao (hello) Beijing !

After lunch I walked to the Forbidden City, a Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of Qing dynasty. Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 720,000 m² (7,800,000 sq ft). It was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

These are my favourite shots that I took in the Forbidden City:

street vendor outside the Forbidden City

entering the gate

welcome to the Forbidden City

pavilion in the Imperial Garden

military guard in the Forbidden City

About the picture above, I did snap a picture in front of this guard. But for unknown reasons, he wasn't happy about it and made everyone to stop taking his picture. So I walked around and stand behind him to sneak another shot. See ! Don't ever told me to not taking pictures because that makes me want to take picture even more. I don't know what's wrong with him, maybe PMS-ing or maybe he hasn't taken a shower for weeks or is it forbidden to take pictures of the guard in the Forbidden City ?

Imperial Guardian Lion

Lions in the Forbidden City are in pairs, the female extending her leg to play with a baby lion which symbolises fertility of the royal family The male lion has a ball under his paw which represents the imperial power.

When bronze lions are in front of a residence, it means the occupant is an official. First rank officials have lions with 13 bumps on the heads. This decreases with the official rank and 8 being the least number of bumps on the head. Officials of rank seven and below were not allowed to have lions outside their gates.

gilded bronze vat

sunset in the Forbidden City

Which one is your favourite picture ?