The Forbidden City

From Tiananmen Square, we crossed the street and entered the Forbidden City.  The Forbidden City was built in the Ming Dynasty and took fourteen years (1406-1420) to build. In the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, it was the imperial palace where twenty-four emperors ruled for over 500 years.  It has approximately 8,700 rooms and 23 gates - we started at the front entrance, and exited out the back of the property, and it seemed as though we were never going to get through the grounds.  Every time you saw a gate to "exit" there was another bigger, more beautiful building.

The Meridian Gate

Lovin' the star-ratings for the toilets!

China has a lot of "squatty" pottys and they don't care for them nearly as well as they do in Korea, so we were pleased to see this sign, and I was really glad to get back home where there's a good chance you have an actual toilet to use, and they don't smell awful!

I belive Tristan had the camera for this shot.

There is a river that curves like an arch in front of the Gate of Supreme Harmony. The river is called the Inner Golden Water, the banks of which are decorated with balusters made of white marble.

Another mob around the kids...

A portion of the original brick used on the grounds of the Forbidden City

The Forbidden City, also named the Palace Museum, shares the honor of being one of five world-famous palaces with the Palace of Versailles in France, Buckingham Palace in England, the White House in the U.S. and the Kremlin in Russia.

We were told that these pots, that were all around the palace grounds, were once filled with water and were to be used to put out any fires that might occur in the buildings.

The Gate of Heavenly Purity

This is the entrance to the Inner Court where the emperor, empress, and concubines lived.

Even though it hasn't been repainted, it was still an impressive sight.

A neat gnarly tree at the entrance to the Imperial Garden

I could've spent hours in the garden taking pictures!

Tristan, Zane, Grace, and Brody

It really helped to have friends along on the trip with us!  The kids enjoyed having others their age to experience all this with.

One of the six watch towers

This is another place that we would've loved to have more time at, but in trying to get in all the sights in 5 days, it just wasn't possible.  There was SO much to see, I imagine you could spend a full day here and still not get to see everything.