Beijing (1) - The Magnificent Imperial Palace

Beijing, the renowned capital city for China, is built for more than 3000 years. It has been an integral part of China’s history for many centuries. It is renowned for its awesome cultures, opulent palaces, magnificent buildings, walls and gates, scenic parks and the list goes on.

It took us some time to get a suitable hotel room with our budget of less an RMB250 per night. Many hotels were meant for the China citizen only and some were not in good condition. We settled with a triple room in the hotel located in An Ding Men (安定门). The hotel rate was reasonable (RMB240) and the room was well kept as well. The only complaint was the air-conditioning could not function and we were told it was due to the local ruling for no air-conditioning in certain period.

Our top priority in Beijing is definitely the Imperial Palace or popularly known as Forbidden City. The Forbidden City 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. The palace was built from 1406 for the duration of 14 years by the Emperor YongLe in Ming Dynasty. It was the permanent residence for a total of 24 emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasties until the last Qing emperor, FuYi, was evicted from the palace on 1924. It also houses the Palace Museum which was established on 1925.

It is located in Dongcheng District (东城区), in the centre of Beijing and is easily accessible by subway. Beijing has good subway infrastructure with many subway lines in the city and this was accelerated thanks to the Beijing Olympic 2008. The fare is also cheap with a flat rate of RMB2 with unlimited transfers applies to all lines except the Airport Express.

On the morning on 14 May, we walked to the nearest AnDingMen subway station (on line 2). After changing to line 1, we reached the TianAnMen West station. The first monument that captured our attention is the popular TianAnMen Gate. It was in fact the principal entry to the Imperial Palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties. We saw a portrait of Mao ZeDong in the centre. The Tiananmen Gate connects the Forbidden City precinct with Tiananmen Square.

Tiananmen Gate

The compound of the Forbidden City is large and is divided into 2 parts. The Outer Court includes the southern sections, and was used for ceremonial purposes. The Inner Court includes the northern sections, and was the residence of the Emperor and his family, and was used for day-to-day affairs of state.

We bought the tickets (fairly priced at RMB60 per ticket) at the ticket counter. We headed to the main entrance at the Meridian Gate – WuMen (午门), the southern gate of the Forbidden City and it is within the compound of the Outer Court. There were a lot of visitors flooded the gate despite it was a working day. We had to queue up slowly to enter the palace.

Meridian Gate

After the Meridian Gate, we saw a large open square, pierced by the meandering Inner Golden Water River (see Photo below), which is crossed by five bridges. The Inner Golden Water River serves the decoration purpose as well as for fire control.

The Inner Golden Water River

The Gate of Supreme Harmony (太和门) stands facing the square

The Gate of Supreme Harmony

We saw a big square after the gate. A three-tiered white marble terrace rises from this square. There are 3 halls stand on top of this terrace. These are the Hall of Supreme Harmony - TaiHeDian(太和殿), the Hall of Central Harmony - ZhongHeDian (中和殿), and the Hall of Preserving Harmony- BaoHeDian (保和殿).The Hall of Supreme Harmony (see Photo below) is the largest hall within the Forbidden City. It was the location where Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty Emperors hosted their enthronement and wedding ceremonies.

The Hall of Supreme Harmony

It took us some time to visit (getting a bit of tired to walk in such a big compound) these halls. We proceeded to the Inner Court and visited the Palace of Heavenly Purity – QianQingGong (乾清宫), which was the residence of the Emperor.

The Palace of Heavenly Purity

The throne within the Palace of Heavenly Purity

We also visited the Hall of Mental Cultivation – YangXinDian. It was significant in Qing dynasty as Emperor Yongzheng and the subsequent emperors all resided here.

The Hall of Mental Cultivation from the external

The Hall of Mental Cultivation (Internal)

There were many walkways (shown in the photo below) connecting to different halls in the Inner Court

We did not miss The Imperial Garden - YuHuaYuan, a private retreat for the imperial family and is the most typical of the Chinese imperial garden design. At each of the four corners of the garden there is a pavilion. These symbolise the four seasons. The Pavilion of Myriad Springs is the most famous and as it's name implies, this pavilion symbolizes spring.

Pavilion within the Imperial Garden

There were many exhibition rooms displaying various collections of the Palace Museum such as jewellery, ancient paintings, bronzes, mechanical timepieces etc. The precious collections were just plentiful and amazing.

We were getting hungry and exhausted by 2:00pm and decided to make a move. WangFuJing Street was our next destination. The popular Quanjude restaurant (全聚德) was our choice of restaurant as we just could not resist the temptation for the Peking Roast Duck, the signature dish in Beijing. It was a delicious, lightly-smoked, rich meal complimented by pancakes, dipping sauce, vegetable filling and irresistible slivers of juicy meat, fat and crispy skin. It was undoubtedly a perfect dining experience.