The City, also known as the Imperial Palace, was the ritual center of two dynasties, the Ming (1368-1644) and the Qing (1644-1911), and was where they kept their extensive collections. The place is sprawling, covering over 3 million square feet. A very impressive place..
You'll see old bikes like these seen above everywhere.. It's really something. You'd be hard-pressed to find bikes as old as some of the ones I've seen at garage sales. I really want to get a photo series of some of these contraptions I've seen...
With Michael Phelps finally completing his historic Olympic run, that's made the schedule a lot easier for us here... Because the swimming events all started early in the morning here to be shown live in the U.S., it made for some very long work days. Now that he's got his 8 golds, I've gotten a little bit more free time in the mornings to actually get out a little bit before heading into the office. I made the trip here to the Forbidden City solo, just taking about an hour and a half to wander through as much as I could. Probably could have spent a good part of the day, but as always, work beckoned..
Amazingly, there was actually a Starbucks in one part of the Forbidden City for some years..
They removed it about a year ago and replaced it with a Tea House. A bit more fitting...
3 comments:
Great shots of the Forbidden City, which is not so forbidden anymore. They've made some big pageant movies in some of the gigantic inner squares of this complex, and it will be interesting to go back and watch some of them as you retrace your footsteps. Suzukisan
The system never seems to remember my password, and I have to re-open my account every day. I'm not sure what the obstacle is...
good pics!
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