Beijing Day 1 - The Forbidden City

Fallen seriously behind in the whole blogging thing. Daaang China. I'm back in the States right now but I'll be attempting to catch up on my thoughts of Beijing, Guangxi, Yunnan, and Sichuan provinces.

So for the Chinese deficient Bei = North and Jing = capital/city. So North Capital/City is what it basically translates to. I wish I knew more but I'm fairly limited in my understanding of Chinese.

Glorious Leader Mao of course has to make his appearance

Oh um. I forgot to mention this. I managed to forget to bring pajama shorts and my camera charger so my pictures may be somewhat lacking. I tried to take the photos that mattered and not be too silly with the battery. It managed to last me into my next trip into Southwest China actually. Pretty amazing. Yay Nikon!

Anyway, on our first day in Beijing we skittishly attempted to navigate the subway/metro and make our way over to Tiannamen/The Forbbiden City.

Pictured here: eye poking death! AKA Umbrellas held by short ladies

Where we saw lots of people sluggishly dragging their feet as they made their way into the city.

I never cared about umbrellas until I realized they were a danger to my eyes. It turns out that most Chinese people/women are just short enough so that when they hold their umbrella they can threaten my sight enablers. D: It also means that I am tall enough so that they can stab me as I just described. Brawrwggh for being tall/them being short. Daaaamn.

I'm not even holding the camera up high

 It turns out that our good friend Yazzy Baby was a big hit with families and random yet aggressive ladies who would yank her away from buying water to get a snapshot. It didn't help that our very Chinese friend Sarah would sort of facilitate the process by posing with Yazzers as a friend (a real friend not as a joke of course).

One of many beautifully decorated  gateways

I honestly didn't expect the Forbidden City to be so HUGE.

I was surprised to find this statue,

Because my brother had made these amazing little turtle puzzles and one looks quite similar if not exactly like that. I have to say his mouth looks a little funny to me.

Huge water vats for fire fighting purposes. These were of course spread throughout the Forbidden City

Either it's the 9 or 11 Dragon Wall for obvious reasons. These dragons were really fascinating.

Real irregular pearls. Gotta get me some!

I could have sworn these animals were based off of actual animals. Like Shih-tzus...  Maybe I'm crazy. Cool animals regardless :D

Ninja Edit: According to the ever resourceful and reliable Wikipedia, these are Guardian Lions. "The lions are always presented in pairs, a manifestation of yin and yang, the female representing yin and the male yang. The male lion has its right front paw on an embroidered ball called a "xiù qiú" (绣球), which is sometimes carved with a geometric pattern known in the West as the "Flower of life" The female is essentially identical, but has a cub under the closer (left) paw to the male, representing the cycle of life." The more you know :D

The color on these tiles was just gorgeous. I couldn't honestly resist.

Some detail on a really huge door/wall

Some detail on a door frame. Sorry that these aren't rotated D:

Found another gorgeous dog monster that seemed to be pinning one of its babies...

So we decided to pin Yazzy Baby of course

Jesus we spent almost the entire daylight hours wandering around the palaces and museum/exhibits. There was a lot to see and we certainly spent our day well at the Forbidden City.

It was a lot of fun though not very informative.
I honestly regret not getting a tour guide for the Forbidden City