Travel Log: Beijing, China

   If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that in November I took an amazing trip to China. My husband and I spent 17 days (including travel days) exploring several regions of this massive country. We visited Shanghai, Zhangjiejie National Forest Park, Tianmenshan National Forest Park, Beijing, the Great Wall of China, Xi'an, and Suzhou. When we were planning our itinerary for this trip, Beijing was at the top of my list to visit for its history as the capital of China and, of course, its proximity to the best preserved sections of the Great Wall. Please continue reading to see more photos and details of how we spent our time in Beijing.

November is not a high tourism month in Beijing, one reason being that this is the month the weather typically shifts from mild fall temperatures to freezing winter temperatures, and we experienced this firsthand. We flew from a comfortable 70 degrees F in Zhangjiajie to 30 degrees F and 20+ mph winds in Beijing. Quite the difference! We originally planned to visit the Great Wall our first full day in Beijing, but due to the weather we moved that tour out a few days and braved the cold for a sunny but frigid small group tour of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. One bonus to the cold weather was that there was no line to get into Tiananmen Square (it can be 2+ hours during peak holiday/travel season) and plenty of room to walk around and take photos.

Tiananmen means "Gate of Heavenly Peace" (tian = heaven, an = peace, men = gate) and this square was built back in 1651 as a gathering place for the people of Beijing. Most people outside of China are familiar with Tiananmen Square due to the 1989 student-led protests calling for democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech among other things that turned deadly and gained international attention. Today, the square holds The Monument to the People's Heroes (the obelisk behind me in the photo below), the Mao Zedong Memorial Hall that houses Chairman Mao's tomb, the Great Hall of the People (legislature building), the National Museum of China, and Tiananmen Gate as the entrance to the Forbidden City. This square is massive at approximately 440,000 square meters and it can hold upwards of 600,000 people.

As I mentioned earlier, the weekend we arrived in Beijing happened to be the weekend that the weather turned from fall to winter with temperatures in the 30's (F) and winds upwards of 20mph. I was glad I packed a fleece vest and a windproof coat, but it was still quite chilly out in the open! It took about ten minutes to walk from the southern Tiananmen Square entrance to the Tiananmen Gate in the north and walking that entire distance really gave us a grasp of the massive size of this square.

There is a very popular photo spot at the north end of the square with a clear view of Tiananmen Gate, and our guide was very kind to take photos of each group here before we moved on into the Forbidden City. One word of caution that if you are taking photos on your own, you need to make sure not to directly photograph the Chinese military personnel posted around the square. One person in our group inadvertently did this, was yelled at by the nearby soldiers, and our tour guide had to take his phone and show the soldiers that he was deleting the photos. This isn't unusual and we have seen this before in countries like Morocco and Egypt--it's just something to be aware of so that you are not put in an awkward situation.

Once you walk all the way through Tiananman Square, there is a pedestrian walkway that takes you underneath the busy street between the north end of the square and Tiananmen Gate. You can then head into the Forbidden City through the gate. An interesting fun fact that may come in handy for a future trivia game: the painting of Chairman Mao above Tiananmen Gate is the largest hand-painted portrait in Asia at approximately 20 feet high (6 meters) x 15 feet wide (4.6 meters). This painting weighs around 1.5 tons! 

Once you pass through Tiananmen Gate, you enter the outer court of the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is also massive; it is in fact the largest preserved royal palace complex in the world that is still standing and size-wise covers 720,000 square meters (178 acres). This stunning palace complex was built between 1406-1420 and was the home of 24 Chinese emperors across the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site and we were able to tour the outer and inner courtyards that in previous generations were inaccessible to all but the Emperor, his family, his concubines, and his servants/eunuchs. You can see elements of feng shui in the design of the Forbidden City--not only the alignment on the north-south axis, but also the manmade rivers for water, yellow roofs representing earth, red walls for fire, and statues of lions, dragons, cranes, turtles for additional protection, longevity, wisdom, and good fortune among other things. There is so much symbolism woven throughout this complex.

Once inside the palace walls, it is easier to grasp the sheer size of the palace. There are rumored to be 9,999 rooms, but that is primarily due to Chinese mythology stating that the Jade Emperor (the supreme deity or God) has a palace with 10,000 rooms in the heavens. Since the Chinese emperor was considered to be the son of the Jade Emperor (hence his divine right to rule), his palace should have just one room less than the Jade Emperor. However, official counts state that there are 9,371 rooms...still plenty of space for any ruler and this family. The largest hall in the Forbidden City is the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the location where the Ming dynasty emperors used to hold affairs of court. This is the largest and tallest surviving wooden structure in China, and due to its wood construction you can see large cisterns strategically placed that were filled with water in case of a fire. If you look closely, you can see the incredible details carved and painted into the walls, ceiling, and roof of this hall.

The Hall of Supreme Harmony marks the transition between the outer court and the inner court. Inner court access was very restricted, as this inner court held the residences of the Emperor, Empress, and their family as well as residences for concubines, servants, and an Imperial Garden. 

Our small group tour was approximately four hours, and very informative, but by the end we were properly frozen and headed back to our hotel for afternoon tea and a warm up. We stayed at the Aman Summer Palace, located right next to the East Gate of the Summer Palace. The hotel team was very sweet to place rose petals on our bed spelling "happy" as I told them I was celebrating my birthday during our stay, and we very much enjoyed our morning dim sum style breakfasts. Unfortunately, this hotel has just been delisted from the Aman portfolio, but it is a beautiful example of traditional Chinese architecture and as guests we had free access to the Summer Palace grounds via a "secret" door. 

We took advantage of our free access to the Summer Palace grounds, as this is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and its initial building were constructed back in 1153 under the Jin dynasty. The Summer Palace went through various stages of expansion and neglect under different emperors over the next 700-ish years until Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the palace to be restored between 1884-1889. The total grounds are approximately 2.9 million square meters or 720 acres, most of that space being covered by the manmade Kunming Lake, and I was fascinated walking through the grounds imagining the Imperial family enjoying this peaceful retreat from the city.

If you made it to the end of this post, a big thank you to you! I hope you enjoyed my recap of our time exploring some of the historical areas of Beijing. We certainly could have spent more time, as there is much more to see, and I hope we can return soon to see more. Please stay tuned for my next post recapping our tour of the Great Wall, thank you for visiting my blog today, and I hope you have an amazing week!