...
(YOU DON'T EVEN WANNA KNOW)
Enjoy the pics.
This is the Forbidden City!! Has anyone heard of it? The Chinese Emperor lived here from the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty (...A LONG TIME)... and a river separates the first temple from the rest of Beijing.
The first temple of the Forbidden City, or the Northern Gate.
The detail on these buildings was absolutely amazing!
Unfortunately, when we arrived, it was WINDY!! Wow all these potted trees blew over (like dominoes :)!
Around the front, there were these bronze elephants.
This is one of the "fake mountains" that the Emperor owns. (Sorry, I don't know anything about this.)
A little, insignificant temple (compared to the other temples)... within a temple.
A fancy outdoor stone furnace.
Two of these bronze dragons guarded the main temple.
This stone is considered "sacred"!! Do you see that it has two different colors? A peachy color and this dark purple? Well. The dark purple shape on the left looks like...? A praying monk!! He's bowing to the temple on the right :). Cool, huh?
Every temple had these "good fortune" animals on the roofing.
On the walkway to some of the "more important" temples was this giant stone tablet with carvings of dragons.
Once we were past the Northern Entrance, there were a couple of temples, then this other important temple (I'm so sorry!! I don't really know much about the Forbidden City... my dad just told me about every temple (and I shamefully forgot most of the info.))
However, I DO know that that temple was a clock museum, with these spectacular clocks.
Ok. This is the NINE DRAGON SCREEN WALL :)! "This wall is composed of 270 glazed decorative bricks. with seawater as the background, nine dragons are encircled by waves and clouds, and separated by six groups of rocks. A yellow dragon is in the center, and eight dragons in blue, white, purple and yellow are on both sides. The dragon was the symbol of the emperor in ancient China. The roof has five ridges, each having a dragon, and the main ridge also has five dragons."
In this picture you see the center yellow dragon, plus the individual bricks.
On the opposite side of the Nine Dragon Screen Wall, there's yet another temple. "Guarding" it were another two bronze dragons, but they had this ornament under their claws.
This temple was an ancient theater ;).
A mountain! Carved into a HUGE block of jade stone! Enclosed in glass!
There's nothing particularly interesting about this temple... it was the one I was just in :).
YES! THE EXIT! We've been walking around the city for like 6 hours (from ten in the morning to 4 in the afternoon!!)
Sigh... the sun was SO intense... I got like 7 shades tanner that day :(
I don't know what this stone totem pole is for...
Ugh! The day's not over yet. We still had to visit Tianmen Square! It's kind of like China's Washington D.C... except in Beijing.
Left side of Tianmen Square.
Right side of Tianmen Square.
This is the Tianmen gate/entrance to the Forbidden City.
Comment please! For example... which clock was your favorite? (FYI, mine is the sunflower one :)
2 comments:
my favorite clock was also the sunflower one
I want to know about the hotel!!
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