The Forbidden City (Marcus)

On Wednesday we decided to explore the Forbidden City - or for the unaware, the former residence of the Emperor's themselves in Beijing. It's called the 'Forbidden' City as it was off-limits to the majority of people for the past 500 odd years. The Forbidden City was actually the very beginnings of Beijing itself. When the capital was temporary down south in Nanjing(same province as good ol Wuxi), they decided to relocate it back north and the construction on the Forbidden City; which took approximately 20 years, was begun. From the walled city, the rest of Beijing grew outward.

It's one of the must see attractions of China as it's effectively the largest collection of well-preserved buildings in all of China - and of course, the Emperors were such a huge part of Chinese history. I wanted to see it on those grounds but in reality, it all becomes a little same ol same ol. There is actually another Emperor 'hang-out' called the Summer Palace - a retreat of sorts where they would go to be somewhat cooler in the heat of summer. We had decided to visit this on Friday but have now scrapped the idea - it's just too samish for our tastes.

The Forbidden City was interesting, and it was impressive in its own way, but because of it being so same ol same ol, it was actually a little boring. We didn't explore too deeply, preferring to stick to the main areas but we did examine some of the side buildings of the outer court which housed small museum-type displays.

These displays were very Chinese in nature - as in, they were covered in dust. It was a real..I don't know, I suppose shame to see all these ancient instruments and other interesting odds and ends just covered in dust. The whole place is an absolute tourist mecca yet they cant dust off the displays within. When you looked into some of the throne type areas, again, they appeared dusty. Actally, when we peered into the middle of the Temple of Heaven(they bar access from inside any of the main buildings - you have to fight alongside 700 Chinese tourists to try and get a peek), likewise it appeared dusty.

With so much interest and excitement in their own culture, can they not do something so simple as clean, dust and look after the artifacts they are so proud to continue to possess? Another classic example of this was an ancient..I think it was a spear- a spear that one of the Emperor's used to hunt tigers. Firstly, it's news to me that there were even Tigers in China, and secondly - the spear had a sticker on it to mark that it was artifact number 42842. The sticker was just of the plain white square variety, nothing special except for the fact it was stuck dead smack in the middle of the 'artifact.' Then, topping that effort, BESIDE the original sticker was another one to it's right - this was an update of the first as if they did an annual stocktake. To complete the masterpiece, there were around another 3 stickers detailing the same deal, like whoever is doing it cant just put it on the original one, let's cover the whole treasure in check-off stickers!!! Blech!

Earlier in the week we visited the Lama Temple. Now the Temple's buildings were very nice to look at but they were also very similar to those in the Forbidden City, so by the time we've looked at 10 or so within the FC, we're a bit over it. Add to that what must have been 40 degree weather and on top of that a gazillion Chinese tourists and well the whole experience was somewhat underwhelming. We were pleased to check it off the list but that was about that, it really didnt float our proverbial boats the way the Great Wall managed to.

I guess if you do too much sightseeing of a similar nature you will always end in this kind of result where a countrie's history is fairly similar to the outside eye. Thankfully we will be heading to three more very different areas of the country so will be picking out the best stuff along the way and enjoying it.

One thing is for sure in all these explorations, China is a very interesting, very different country. It is fun being a tourist for a time and we are enjoying moving from place to place. The location we're staying is easily the best part of Beijing we have seen . Beijing itself was initially very impressive but we've since discovered that it mostly attributes to this particular area we are staying in. The deeper we have explored, the more we have seen and the more similarities you can come up with to a place such as Canberra. Of course way way way bigger, but so open, so sparse in parts - so lacking in real feeling or identity.

Cant keep my eyes open, see you!