Forbidden Economies of Scale
After our amazing and exhausting trip to the great wall Saturday, and reunited with the CVG team, we decided to hit up the epicenter of ancient Chinese power and modern tourism. We woke up early to beat the crowds and subwayed over to the Forbidden City complex.
"Large" doesn't quite capture it. Everything China does is bigger, but the Forbidden City and surrounding sites take it to a whole new level. From the second you leave the subway and walk up into the square across the road, your entire field of vision is taken up by massive palace walls on one side and a field of stone on the other. Even early in the morning, milling crowds of tourists (both international and Chinese) mill around taking pictures of everything and entering into various queues for the attractions.
We decided (unwisely), to go to the Forbidden City first, so began entering into lines. First, there was the line for the first security check; then, the line to get into the city; then, the line to get tickets; then the realization that we were in the wrong ticket line; so, out to another line to get the right tickets; then more security...
Finally, we made it in! By this point, we had passed by several tiers of walls and gates that would daunt the Mongol hordes. This is not a place that it would be appealing to attack, especially when you include the formidable presence of various Chinese military forces protecting the area.
Inside was beautiful. The complex is a Russian nesting doll arrangement where you pass through successive gates with palaces that ancient emperors used for all types of activities: putting on shoes, holding banquets, being rubbed down by concubines. There are even palaces for resting in between traveling between palaces in the complex (which is reasonable since it is pretty exhausting walking between them. We are talking a multi-mile stroll). The buildings also house various pieces of art, antique military equipment, and other posessions of the dynasties, so that you can get a better picture of life back then. What is amazing about these cases of artifacts is that a sword from 3000 years ago may be sitting next to a sword from 700 years ago without much change. Both the quality of preservation and the timelessness of the culture are incredible.
My favorite piece of the interior, however, was the gardens. Within the massive stone walls, the ruling class could relax from their stressful lives by wandering around carefully manicured gardens, fountains, pools and weathered stone formations. Even with huge crowds inside, it was a strangely tranquil environment. I can imagine that the gardens were a great place for emperors to come after a long day of ruling a quarter of the planet's population.
After a few hours, despite only having seen a fraction of the complex, we decided to move on to see a few more of the sites surrounding the area. Unfortunately, because the exit to the Forbidden City is on the far side from the entrance, when we left we realized that we had to walk all the way around the walls of the city to get back to Tiananmen square. This helped get us up to our Chinese daily average of twelve-thirteen miles of walking a day.
Tiananmen square is pretty impressive, although there is not a lot in it. Surrounded on all sides by monolithic sculptures and buildings dedicated to the Chinese bureaucracy, its interior is mostly empty, though dotted with throngs of tourists, marching soldiers, lights and security cameras. In the very center, there is a large stone pillar dedicated to the People's Heroes. While not quite on the same scale as the Washington monument, in the middle of so much empty space, it sends a message.
By this point we were pretty much touristed out, so we headed a few miles (or two blocks according to Yuming) down the road to a famous dumpling restaurant. We had a big group, so they gave us a private room upstairs. We proceeded to absolutely pig out, devouring 150 dumplings and a couple side dishes between the eight of us. We ordered a range of different fillings, and everything we ate was delicious. Best of all was the price: only 260 RMB total or about $5 USD per person.
As we tried to avoid slipping into food comas, we caught the subway back to the train station. Fortunately, this time the CVG team was with us, so they managed to make it on time! We blasted off back to Shanghai at 300 km/hr, tired but happy with an awesome trip to Beijing.
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