The second day started off with a breakfast consisting of a roll. After breakfast the group walked to the back end of the Forbidden City and hiked up Jingshan Hill, to the temple at the top. The mountain was built to protect the Forbidden City from the north. It’s actually a man made hill; all the dirt that was used to make the hill came from digging the moat around the city. Not only does a moat surround the city, it also has huge walls going all the way around it. After some nice photo ops we went back down and headed over to the back entrance of the city.
It was still early but there were already a lot of tourists in the Forbidden City. At this point we were left to our own devices and allowed to wander around through the city. We had 3 hours to do that and I still didn’t see everything. The city is immense.
On the edges of the city are smaller buildings and it's here that you can see the age of the place. Faded pictures are still on the roof beams. I really like the bright roof tiles and the roof-figures.
When the time was up in the Forbidden City we went out the main entrance to Tiananmen Square.
We split up again and a group of us went to a mall where you could buy pretty much any designer product. To end the night we all went to a tea house and watched several performances, including a flower pot “juggler,” long-spouted tea servers, and a troupe of Kong Fu monks. It was a good end to the long day.
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