Forbidden City

Gugong, the Forbidden City, was closed to local hoi polloi and foreign devils alike for over five hundred years. These days Gugong serves as a public exhibit and occasional movie set, which probably has even greater visual impact when full of extras in period costumes. Which isn't to say that we didn't enjoy our day there, it was great in fact, but the seemingly endless chain of enormous courtyards features such a wealth of open space that one can't help wondering how these expanses were populated during imperial reign. Perhaps a re-screening of the film Hero might straighten this out, as director Zhang Yimou's revisionist Forbidden City fills in the empty spaces quite extravagantly. Actually, I'll never forget a film student friend of mine telling me about Shanghai Triad in college because, for the life of me, I couldn't understand the director's name as pronounced by a California native-- "who the hell is Johnny Moe?" I wondered out loud.

Sadly, the interiors of the Forbidden City are still largely off limits, and on the day we visited the reputedly impressive Hall of Supreme Harmony was closed for tuning, so we missed out on seeing the Dragon Throne, where the Emperor would sit drinking oolong while hosting marathon D&D sessions. The exhibits that were open that day were fairly pedestrian, and the real highlight of the Forbidden City comes at the end when you arrive at its mercifully shaded and inviting Imperial Garden. In fact, if possible, I'd suggest starting here as it's my favorite part. For the Chinese tourists, Vanessa and I seemed a part of Gugong's exotic confines, and several families requested that we join them in there group photos. Sadly, I don't have copies.

The side streets around the Forbidden City are equally interesting, and after passing back through Gugong's towering walls we navigated a constant bombardment of shilling rickshaw pilots, finally turning off the main road, and strolling along a quiet side street. Beijing's Dongcheng area, which is home to Gugong and some of the oldest structures in the city, was bustling with workers, street vendors, some sort of photo shoot, and any number of fellow flâneurs. Stopping in at a few small markets along the way, shopkeepers held fast to insanely inflated prices for beverages, trying to charge us around six times the going rate. Eventually, we flagged down a cab, stopping at a shopping center on the way back to the hotel, where we bought water, beer, and a new pair of sneakers to replace my ill advised white slip-ons, which Dubai had quickly sullied. 

Later that evening we took a cab to a great Thai restaurant called Purple Haze, making our selection not so much in honor of my dorky, Hendrix obsessed 12 year old self, but because it was well recommended and deservedly so. As always, we managed to order way too much food, and left feeling sleepy and sated. In fact, I've rarely slept as wells I did in China, where each day held long stretches of walking punctuated by a series of excellent meals.