Our visit to the Forbidden City of Beijing

A panorama of the "Forbidden City" it was call that because it was closed to the out side world for 500 years.  It was the seat of the Ming and Qing Emperors and no one could enter or leave with out permission.  These days the Chinese call it Gu Gong, or former Imperial Palace.  There are over 800 buildings and 1,000 rooms.  Over the years it has been ransacked  by invaders and gutted by fire several times.  Most of the structures date from the 18th century on.  As you walk through the complex, the Palace buildings have been converted into Museums and Theatre, Pavilions for viewing Opera and buildings like that.  But you get the feeling for what it was like to live the imperial life, a highly ritualised existence of exquisite luxury.  The inner court once reserved for the emperor and his family and royal concubines and eunuchs.  It's elaborate halls are filled with symbols and beautiful art work in finest detail.



This is where we enter at the Shennwu Gate to the Imperial Palace area.   It was very impressive.




As we stepped through the door our guide Jessie was explaining the reason for the brass knobs on the doors and why we had to step over each door.   I wasn't paying to much attention what he was telling us, I was busy taking pictures of some of the details around the area.




Here we posed for a picture in front the entrance to one of the main buildings, Jessie was always there to take our picture together at important places.  It was a nice day only 82 degrees of dry heat.   We were standing in one area where it was quite crowded and I felt someone snuggle up to me and I looked over and this young Chinese girl was standing by me to have her boy friend take out pictures together.   I have more pictures of the Palace area, but this is all I can put on this blog, without it disappearing.



Visiting the Olympic Village Birds Nest Stadium.



The National Stadium "Bird's Nest" is constructed with a series of radiating steel structures going around the bowl shaped seating areas.  With scientific concision and unique design it is a steel construction with the largest span in the world.  With advanced equipment and humane in design ideas.  It also a special landmark of historical significance. 


A good picture of Derek & Rita in front of the Bird Nest Stadium.  We see some of the art around the Olympic Village, they take great in their art.   Some is very funny, we had to take pictures of it, especially the one above.




Some of the pictures John took with his camera.  See the kites flying above one of the street light.   I loved this one of the river running close to the Stadium.  Every thing was coordinated, even down to the lights on the lawns.




The Olympic Forest Park is located at the northern end of the axis which goes through the city from South to North.  As we proceeded to walk to the end this is what we saw in the city.  In the Northern park of Olympic Forest Park is going on the construction of the biggest urban park of Beijing which will prolong the urban axis, ending it with scenes of hills and water.



On to have an adventure in Beijing, China.

We got a wake up call at 5:30 this morning, we leave this morning at 7:30 for the airport for our flight to Beijing.  The plane leaves at 10 am.  Ann and her driver Jung were there early to pick us up.  So many cars on the roads to the freeway it was a little hairy.  The airport was built 20 years ago, between the city of Beijing and the airport we see alot of nice farms and rural towns.   Ann and Jung told us goodbye.  Ann had tears in her eyes and really seem sad to say goodbye.   Rita had Derek take our picture with her above.   We were about the first ones to get to gate 7, it was all nice and quiet until the Chinese came and it gets really noisily, most talking so loud on their cell phones, the louder they talk the more important they feel.  Our plane was delayed for half hour, than it stretched in to more than an hour.  It was a huge plane and after we got seated we sat there for another 45 minutes before they took off.  It was interesting though, as we took off the movie screen showed the take off, and the ground below what we would see if we were looking out the window of the plane.  We were served a really nice lunch, after all our waiting...   After getting our bags after landing, mine was showing it didn't get treated very well, being the first on, it was the last bags to come out of the plane.  At least all my little gifts were still there.  Our new Guide was a young man named "Jessie" a name he adopted because his Chinese name was to hard to pronounce.  His driver was named "George", they made quite a pair.  Jessie was really an enthusiastic young man.  Right away he told us that he was a Professor at the University and this was his summer job.  He reminded me of the nutty Professor that Jerry Lewis played in one of his movies.  We were to be met and taken to our hotel and the rest of the day be on our own, but Jessie, said our time was too short for all the things he wanted to have us see.  So after getting us booked into our hotel he took us to the "Olympic Village"  we saw some of as we went to our hotel.  We weren't to visit that until Monday.



Jessie and Derek getting us checked in at the hotel, next picture is what we see out the window of our room.  The Dragon out in front of the Hotel.  This is June 24 a Friday morning.




Above is the inside of the hotel, it was very nice.  Below are some pictures I took as we approached the Olympic Village.




John standing there waiting for us to catch up to him.  As you can see it's a very tourist place, it attracts lots of visitors.   The first area was the Water Cube Aquatic center. The National Swimming Center.  It is the first steel structured building with the "bubble theory" in the world.  It was during the 2008 Olympic Games swimming sportsmen created new records one after another, making it a "water magic cube" this glittering and translucent construction is of clever design, complicated structure, simple and clear of appearance and advanced science technology, has become a landmark of century long history of Olympic construction, as well as the world construction.   Then to the Bird Nest Stadium.  We got our picture taken by it and, took a lot pictures through there.