Beijing - Tour Day 10

Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the centre of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen gate (Gate of Heavenly Peace) located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the fourth largest city square in the world (440,000 m2 – 880×500 m or 109 acres – 960×550 yd). It has great cultural significance as it was the site of several important events in Chinese history including the incident with the student and the tank.

 

Before our next stop a few of us decided to go to the toilet. This was like going 10 rounds in the wrestling ring. We are far too polite, if you don't push in you wont get in. This is the busiest toilet I have been in, hopefully we won't have that experience again. Next we visited the Forbidden City which was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty. It is located next to Tienanmen Square and now houses the Palace Museum. It served as the home of emperors and their households as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government for almost 500 years.

Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 72 ha (180 acres). The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture,and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

As we are here on a Saturday both sites are really busy with local tourists as well so to get to see inside anything is a real bum fight. If I said there was 500 guides with flags it is probably more.

We also visited the Temple of Heaven which was constructed from 1406 to 1420 during the reign of the Yongle Emperor, who was also responsible for the construction of the Forbidden City in Beijing. The complex was extended and renamed Temple of Heaven during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor in the 16th century. The Jiajing Emperor also built three other prominent temples in Beijing, the Temple of Sun (日壇) in the east, the Temple of Earth (地壇) in the north, and the Temple of Moon (月壇) in the west .

The Temple of Heaven was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998 and was described as "a masterpiece of architecture and landscape design as the "symbolic layout and design of the Temple of Heaven had a profound influence on architecture and planning in the Far East over many centuries.

We also stopped at a silk factory where a few of us bought silk quilts and pillows. We were shown the process of making the quilts which takes a lot of silk. They are supposed to be cool in summer and warm in winter and last for 20 years. We will see.

The six of us went to the restaurant recommend by Velma near our hotel for dinner and successfully managed to order what we wanted again, we are experts at this now.

Fitbit steps 19.785, 13.16km