Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests
Detail on the iron jugs used to hold water in case of fire.
Look at all the tourists!
The Emperor's bedroom. Sorry for the fuzziness.
Chinese ghosts travel in straight lines, so as you're walking through the Forbidden City, you run into walls like this that you have to go around.
Close up of detail on door.
9 is a lucky number, so the doors have 9 rows of 9 rivets.
These are on the top of each building in the Forbidden City. There's always an odd number for good luck. The more characters, the more important the building (or the people living in it). The most characters on a building was 11.
These iron jugs were filled with water so that they could be used to put out fires, if necessary.
South entrance to the Forbidden city.
At the Forbidden City. These are some super-old bricks.
They are really into their walls here. This was on the walk to the Forbidden City.
There were some gates in the walls on the walk to the Forbidden City. I snuck a look in one of the gates and this is what I saw. These are called hutongs and are rapidly being knocked down before the 2008 Olympics. Apparently, many people in Beijing live in hutongs.
As you may have heard, bicycles are VERY popular in Beijing.
Saw this on my walk to the Forbidden City.
Apparently they made this for the Olympics. A guy was trying to tell me more but I was pretending I didn't speak English, so I couldn't get more details.
Flowers my dad & step-mom sent to my hotel (in China!?!) for my birthday. They make my hotel room smell really great. FYI - flowers in China don't come with a vase, so don't take off the pretty wrapping paper cause there's just plastic underneath.
These are actual uniforms that were worn by the Emperor's army. Really.
This is the fancy schmancy mall below my hotel. I thought they were communists?
Cool tree at the Empress' Garden at the Forbidden City.
Note how tight the rightmost soldier's belt is cinched. These guys are skinny.
Originally, Beijing was surrounded by a wall. There were 9 gates used to enter into and out of the city. This is one of the 9 gates. The wall no longer exists.
This lightpost is at Tiananmen Square. Note the video camera and the speakers inside the brass enclosure. There are speakers all over Beijing, which is kinda creepy, if you ask me.
Walking through one of the 9 gates that surround Beijing, looking out at another gate.
These banners are hanging above the street in Dazhalan Lie.
I think she was selling tea.
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