San Jose Episcopal Day School

The Forbidden City and Tian’an Men Square in Beijing are one of the most anticipated places for us on our trip. It has so much ancient as well as recent history associated with it, that one feels a great deal of anticipation.

We started our tour on Sunday morning on the world largest public square (the size of 90 American football fields): Tian’an Men Square.

Tian’an Men Square has been in the news several times, the most famous was the gathering of the student protesters and the governments violent suppression of it in 1989.

We had blue skies, cool temperatures and thousands of other tourists joining us while eagerly looking towards the main entrance of “The Forbidden City”. It was funny to watch a huge tourist group, all with red baseball caps on following a tour guide like little ants , who was waving a tall flag post ahead. We were glad that it was just the two of us following our guide “Tom’. While crossing the immense square ones eyes automatically are drawn to the entrance of “The Forbidden City” with the giant painting of “Chairman Mao”.

The “city” was the imperial palace for the Ming and Qing Dynasties and was forbidden for common people to enter. It took 14 years to build, starting in 1406 and completed in 1426. Between 1420 and 1923, the palace was home to 24 emperors. It was opened to the public in 1949.

It is said that the Forbidden City has 9,999 rooms, since 9 is the most important and biggest single number.
We saw many special statues in the city. One of the most impressive ones are the lions that are guarding the entrances.

The lion on the right is always a male lion and the one on the left is female. The male lion has a ball under its paw, while the female lion has a cub under the paw to protect the palace and house.

Other animals that we saw and who have a special meaning were :

The Turtle and the crane which mean longevity.

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