满城尽带Ka-Me-Ra!

Guessed where I went yesterday? I signed up for this day tour with my friends and we spent the morning and afternoon at Tian An Men and the Forbidden City. We were led by a tour guide who had participated as a tour guide during the olympics. Her english was pretty good.


Tian An Men square is, like its name suggests, a big square surrounded by nice building and monuments.


There were lots of tourists walking around and the guides needed a way to recognise their charges. Can you guess what it is?

This is the first gate into the Forbidden City. There are 2 gates before you can reach the outer court. Chairman Mao looks on as thousands of tourists walk pass his gate everyday. The irony: Tourists in the Forbidden City! Not so forbidden any more...lol


"来人啊！给我托出午门斩!" This is 午门.


After 午门, we get into the palace proper. This is where the emperor got down to business, where he conducted his meetings with his officials. This is 太和殿.


This is the emperor throne. I had to squeeze, push and jostle to get this shot.


Next, we move on to the middle court. This was the place where the emperor rested before his court sessions, his "rest room", get it? "REST ROOM", get it?

This is the inner court. This is where the emperor rested with his 后宫三千。 Lucky Lucky!


This is 御花园, a place where the concubines, princesses and empress chilled and caught butterflies. I never thought that I would actually be in a place where I only heard about in the chinese period movies. And this is not 姥姥 hor!


I think we spent about 5 hours walking around the palace. We were pretty tired but happy by the end of the tour. Those are my MBA classmates.(The little boy in the corner? He is not my MBA classmate. Didn't do too well for GMAT i heard.. just joking!)


Final few shots before I left the place. Enjoy!