Visiting the Forbidden City

My busy day Saturday:

Around 10 I went to a meeting in the lab of all the biotech students, where we watched a presentation by a researcher from Cornell. She spoke English very well, but also very quietly, and Dr. Kang and I were in the very back of the room. But what I did hear sounded interesting. We had lunch at the lab (including my first Chinese watermelon!).
After lunch, I was checking my email when Xiang Chen (sp?), whom I’d met briefly a few days ago, came in and wondered if I’d been introduced to many of the other students, and I said only a few. He was incredibly kind and welcomed me to come hang out and talk with his friends and him whenever. While we were talking he asked if I’d been around the city, and I said I pretty much hadn’t left campus. Before I knew it, we had plans to go visit the Forbidden City that afternoon!
His girlfriend ‘Julia’ came by and we grabbed a taxi. It was a lengthy ride to the middle of the city, and when I wasn’t glued to the window we talked about a lot of things, from college to American TV. They both spoke excellent English – Xiang Chen had spent a year in the UK, and Julia was actually planning to study in Paris (so she’s at least trilingual!).
However, for being so global, neither of them had visited the Forbidden City before, even though Julia had grown up in Beijing. I told them it was okay – I’d never been to Chicago!
The Forbidden City was SO beautiful and SO enormous. There was building after building of stunning Chinese architecture surrounded by expansive plazas and lush gardens. We spent a couple hours walking around and didn’t even see half of it.
Taking pictures was a little frustrating because I couldn’t really do the place justice – but you can view my attempts on flickr!
I was so lucky to have my own personal Chinese guides with me. Xiang Chen explained the significance of the dragon and the number 9 in the architecture and told me some of the legends about the place (like where the emperor hid the name of his heir & where a famous concubine was drowned).
And as I watched American tourists struggle to get a cab I felt so fortunate to have native Beijing-ers with me!
On our way back we stopped at a Cantonese restaurant where the main theme seemed to be eating food with the head intact. We weren’t quite so adventurous, but everything was still new to me. We had Cantonese duck, stuffed mushrooms, a kind of braised squash dish, pink Chinese yogurt cakes sprinkled with coconut, and kiwi juice. The duck was the hardest thing I’ve had to eat so far with chopsticks – it was served kind of like ribs, with bones attached, and I didn’t have the grace to hold a piece up to my mouth and detach the meat with my teeth. So my fingers got a little greasy and I looked pretty silly. But everything was delicious!

Oh, and the prices for everything:

Ticket to the Forbidden City: 60 yuan ($7.82)
Ticket to the Hall of Jewelry: 10 yuan ($1.30)
Dinner for three: 115 yuan ($15)

Pictures at: Flickr.com