Today turned out to be a sunny day, 30 degrees Celsius (86F). We decided to spend our day at the forbidden city since it was close by and one of the main sights of Beijing.
Nice walk in the beautiful weather with Chinese tourist everywhere, who happened all to be amazed with Stefan's height. Stefan is quite tall 205cm (6'7 feet) so he really stood out compared to the average Chinese 171 cm(5'7 feet). From time to time we noticed pictures were being take of us. We just smiled and waved, which caused happy and laughing faces. We entered the Forbidden City from the South Gate which on its own is enormous.
We took an audio guide and decided I should listen to the guide and pass the information to Frank and Stefan. We learned about what the city was used for and that the forbidden city has a total of nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine rooms. Chinese historical culture says that heaven has ten thousands rooms, the emperor had one less to show he wanted to show his importance was next in line right after heaven.
In the forbidden city we walked around for several hours visiting almost every region of the city. From the emperor throne to the different houses the emperors and empresses chose to life in.
The main events like the throne were flooded by people trying to take pictures. Fortunate with our height it is quite easy to get a good shot.
At one point there seemed to be some panic at one of the gates we tried to pass through. After we passed the gate it got closed and we were locked in to one of the courts. Some security guards came and started forcing people to move away from the main highlights of the city.
We all basically got locked in the court and decided to sit and wait in the shade to see what happens. It turned out that there was a representative of an African nation visiting the Forbidden City, so everyone had to make way. The whole event took about 25 minutes before we were allowed to move on again. Overall the city was quite beautiful and extremely big!
When we left the city a few different sellers tried to sell us Rolex watches and Chinese statues. Quite a bargain but not something we were really interested in at that time. We went back to the hotel to relax a bit. That night we headed a bit east of the hotel and found a great restaurant where we had great food and a few beers all for a total of 15 euros. This was truly a shock for us, great food, a nice looking restaurant and beers (600mL per bottle) included and that for such a price. There is no way you would find something like this for the same price in The Netherlands. Happy and satisfied we went back to the hotel for a good night of sleep.
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