Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The Forbidden City

These are the photos taken at the Forbidden City during my visit recently. It was raining on the day I was there, and the temperature drops drastically to around 6 to 10 degree Celsius.


* * *



The Forbidden City cover 720,000 square meters (74 hectares). There are 800 buildings that have in total 9,999 rooms, less one room than the Palace of Heaven, a palace of gods in the sky. In some accounts, the Forbidden City has 9,999.5 rooms - the half-room, apparently, houses nothing more than a staircase. The Forbidden City is as well the world's largest palace complex.




The bricks of the wall are said to be made partly from white lime and glutinous rice while the cement is made partly from glutinous rice and egg whites. These incredible materials were said to make the wall extraordinarily strong.

The Tiananmen Gate

The Tian'Anmen Gate, or literally the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the entrance to The Forbidden City. As seen at the center is the portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong and the seal of the People's Republic of China..

The portrait weighs 1.5 tonnes.

* * *

The First Courtyard

The huge courtyard covers a space of over 10,000 square meters. The grand size was both to acommodate large numbers of people on ceremonial occasions and to create a sense of imperial majesty.



The original tiles at the courtyard.


* * *

The Hall of Preserving Harmony

The Hall of Preserving Harmony sits on the northern end of the three-tier marble terrace of the Outer Court, similar in style but a bit smaller than the Hall of Supreme Harmony but larger than the Hall of Complete Harmony. It was first built in 1420, rebuilt in 1625 and renovated in 1765.

The walkway to the main courtyard of the hall.

Rows of Gargoyles.

Decorative ballustrades.


Decorative ballustrades.

There are over 1000 gorgoyles around the raised platform for the Outer Court halls. In heavy rain, each becomes a fountain as rain drains out through each mouth except for those in the corners.

A dragon head sculpture.


Closeup look at the door holder.

* * *

The Gate of Celestial Purity



The opening gate to the Inner Court. All gates in the Forbidden City are decorated with a nine-by-nine array of golden door nails, except for the East Glorious Gate, which has only eight rows.


One of the many strange creatures guarding the roof of the imperial palaces. Yellow is the color of the Emperor. Thus almost all roofs in the Forbidden City bear yellow glazed tiles.

* * *

The Palace of Earthly Tranquility

The Palace of Earthly Tranquility is a double-eaved building, 9 bays wide and 3 bays deep. In the Ming Dynasty, it was the official residence of the Empress.

The sculptures on one of the two pots at the main courtyard of the palace.

The Dragon holding a fireball.

The pot, the deer and the dragon - all in one set at each side of the palace.

The inside look of the sleeping chamber in the palace. These items are the originals as once used by the empresses, including the jade candle-holder and the tea set.

The front yard of the palace.

One of the cool-looking rock display by the wall of the walkway.

* * *

The Imperial Garden

The garden was built in 1417 during the Ming dynasty. It covers an area of about 12,000 square meters and was the private garden of the imperial family. This garden was used exclusively by the imperial family to sip tea, play chess, meditate and generally relax.

A specially shaped rock promotes harmony and peace in the Imperial Garden

Rows of hundreds of years old cypress trees in the Imperial Garden

A closeup look at one of the many cypress trees.

A lonely dragon head watching over a still pool of cold water.

Towering cypress tree surrounding an Imperial building.

A very old cypress tree inside the Imperial Garden

The rear exit of The Forbidden City. The moat is highly visible here.

* * *

Me at the main courtyard of the Forbidden City.


FarA said...

whoa! magnificent :) that explains your hiatus.

Mighty Jacksparrow said...

yea. haha. hi fara ~

ayong said...

wow! amazingggg! :D

Mighty Jacksparrow said...

thanks qiela :)

weda said...

d setting reminds me very much of a kung fu movie starred by cecelia cheung and louis khoo (:

woody said...

jack, no words pls.. the pics are already talking.. more pics!!!! :D