Beijing 2024 - Forbidden City Main and Entrance

Finally, after queueing for 30minutes, and going through the ticket and security checks, we were headed inside to the Forbidden City! This was the moment I've been waiting for! How big was it going to be inside? This was the place they filmed The Last Emperor! I was beyond excited! Even the alley going in was so huge and long!

Getting closer now! All the people in front of us were already stopping for photo taking! The first sight! 

Ta-dah! The front yard! You had to go thru another red wall before you reached the front of the Forbidden City. But you could already see the building looming behind the red wall. All the people were already busy taking photographs everywhere. This was just the morning crowd! And don't worry, the queue to get in for independent visitors and tour group are different, so you don't have to queue behind large groups of tour people.

Once inside the red wall, we were finally inside the Forbidden City! Everyone was rushing to the main hall, we decided to avoid the crowd and ventured to the side. That is why we could get lovely photos of an almost empty Forbidden City! The ground was huge! And so clean and white. And I wasn't expecting a river to run through it. That caught me by surprise! But it did made a nice landscape for photo taking.

Here is the view from the side with the red wall and the river. You could see a large crowd of people at the distance. That's the middle of the ground, and we were at the far left side of it. Huge, right? And beyond where we stood, we could enter into another section were different halls and courts can be found! I'll show you that in the next post I think. Come back tomorrow to check that out.

We did venture to the middle to looked at some of the notable large figurine, like this lion here. All chinese temples and official places have these. But here, it was just at a larger scale. Maybe even carved from jade. Who knows! 

Wide eye wide of the Forbidden City.

And another one to show how far you had to walk from the red wall to the first great hall. All I can say is, it is best to come here when you are still mobile! the floors aren't smooth either ya! They are carved of stones. And this was just the front of the palace. Expect to walk more as you enter into the palace ground and courtyards and gardens and ..... you get the idea! I want to say I've never walked so much in my life during my travels before, and it was true during this trip as I could clocked almost 36k steps in a day or so. But I recently did the Singapore Rail Corridor walk from Tanjung Pagar to Kranji, and that was a 42k steps walk, around 24km! So that was my record for now. Problem was, to do a pilgrimage, I needed to walk over 30km a day! Ha! That will take some consideration! I am not getting any younger!

The far left corner of the open space, with red walls/doors dividing the main from the side area.

Super giant red doors that lead to the side area. My plan was to visit all the side areas as well as the main area, with some notable halls as a must-visit on my list. I was prepared mentally that I may not be able to visit every single place in this huge palace, but I was sure as hell going to try! It was hard to get tickets, and I was probably going to be here only once in my life! Gonna fully utilise the whole day here! We have enough food and drinks to last us till dinner time! (I hope).

Souvenir shot of husband at the Forbidden City.

One of us too.

And another! Welcome to the Forbidden City Cordy!

Beijing 2024 - On Our Way to The Forbidden City

We are finally going to our first tourist attraction on this day! To the Forbidden City. I was so excited. I planned for us to spend the full day inside, so first we went over to the opposite site of our hotel to grab some breakfast and lunch, Chinese Pancakes! I love these. I think we bought from this stall 3 times, and I love their hot soya milk too. Very cheap and affordable food, and great for carrying around on a busy day to eat later. 

We head out super early as we weren't too sure how to get there, and we wanted to make sure we don't end up queuing too much. So first we head to the train station since we couldn't just walk there due to all the road closure. Look how empty it was! Who said China was crowded???? Who said Beijing was going to be 'people mountain people sea'??? I think I can have a collection of empty spaces in Beijing in my photo collection! And look how beautiful, clean and artsy the subway underground is, with paintings of flowers decorating the walls. Super like!

 

We followed all the police instruction and took a super long walk to enter the inner city. It was a super long way to walk! Luckily it was quite cooling in September, although a bit gloomy weather. Above was some of the scenes we walked pass as we made our way towards the entrance.

Getting nearer, we were now in a kind of a park outside the Forbidden City, and I could see the skyline of the city beyond. I still have no idea what that building is, but it did looked pretty cool here in this picture.

Finally saw some structure of the Forbidden City. This was still outside at the park area, and I just love the still waters and green trees hanging down on the side. We slowed down a little to admire the view. To our right was actually a road, and as we saw more and more tourist group walking towards towards the entrance, we also hurried along! Don't want to be queueing behind them!

Some pavilion along the road. Pretty cool looking. Looked pretty new too! Or at least, well maintained.

Gate going in to the main entrance area. Main entrance meaning the place you start queuing. We have gotten our tickets via WeChat app. Did I mentioned that all entrance tickets to attractions can be bought via WeChat. Buying tickets was quite a challenge to us! Especially those that have limited numbers of visitors per day. We scheduled one week to get those tickets, and was always ready with our apps when the ticket selling time opens online. What an adrenaline rush to get those tickets! Throw in the Chinese Language that confuses me even more, especially those 'are you a robot' challenge! You could pay more and buy the tickets via websites like Trip.com or Klook, but where's the fun in that!

There are timings stated in our tickets, and I got the morning 830am tickets. Even with the timing, we had to queue. I think we queued about 30minutes before the opening time. We were front enough to see the entrance of the Forbidden City and the guards outside. While queuing, we also spend time chatting with the people in the queue. We spoke to a Taiwanese lady, and some aunties from Guangzhou who was disappointed that their flight to Beijing was as long as our flight to Beijing! Hahahaha. Cause that made us just as touristy as them. 

Here is the view of the front entrance with all the guards outside. Before going in, there are two security check at each side for bag clearance and ticket checking. For foreigners who already bought the tickets, you would have entered your passport during the buying process, so you could just scan your passport to go in. You could also scan the QR code. So it depends. But if they see a passport, the security person are usually nicer to you, lol.

Guards on official duty. Everyone looked so serious!

I guess this was the China that I was expecting.

Outside on the ground, we also saw some trainee guards or soldiers matching by. Cool! Best of China!

Beijing 2024 - Day 1 Food Adventure

So being surrounded by shops and restaurants, what did we eventually ended up eating on our first day in Beijing? Well, this is a post all about that! I wanted to eat street food. So we wandered around checking the prices of the snack stores, and ended up at this one, which was my favourite 

So for lunch, the husband had some skewers. Super giant skewers that people were just casually eating all over the streets like a boss! We got a sotong and a beef or mutton skewer. They were delicious!

I got a beef meat pie. I think it was beef! Lol. It was on my to-eat list, and only 9yuan each! Which was less than 2sgd. And it was pretty filling. We came back to the shop two more times during our stay, cause I fell in love with one of the dish here, which in English translation was called 'Exploding Stomach'. A dish filled with beef intestines and stomachs etc and lots of vegetables, and peanut chilli sauce, and cilantros! OMG, so much cilantros that I just love it! I still miss it after leaving Beijing. It's a snack I would happily eat again and again. Super addictive.

I also saw Beijing Yogurt, also on my to-eat list, but they sold it without refrigeration. Was that safe to eat? Anyway, above was a small 'mamak' shop at some back alley which my husband wanted to get a beer from. 

We got and tried a few beers in Beijing. This was also on my to-eat list, or to-drink in this case. It's called Yanjing Beer, and I understand that Yanjing was the old name of Beijing? 

Here's the beer boy enjoying his beer at the back alley, lol. We love going local like that. And the beer was out from the fridge, so it was cool! Very refreshing after walking around the whole day. And the beer wasn't expensive either. Almost on par with a regular soft drink price. Maybe just more expensive by one or two yuan. So beer it was for the rest of the trip! Plus, Chinese beer are more like Shandy, not too high in alcohol. 

At another alley, the husband got some sugared covered fruit skewer. Coming to Beijing was my idea, but I have a feeling my husband was having more fun than me here. Mainly cause he could relate more to these traditional food of China as compared to me who grew up in a more western influenced family. I really have no reference point of Chinese culture except from western movies! Granted I did studied in a Chinese school all young life up to O-levels! Lol. 

For dinner, the husband picked the place, and I approved it as it was also on my to-eat list. It was braised product, and I bet he thought there would be braised pork. Hahahaha, how wrong of him. Since we had only snacks for lunch, we went into the store around 5pm for an early dinner, hence it was quite empty. But the words in the photo above says it was a hundred over year shop, so hope the food is good.

Here is a look at the store. We found it in another alley, lol. Super local, right? I always try to avoid restaurants on the main street. Alley was usually where they hide all the places where locals ate at.

And this was what we had, braised intestine soup with liver and I forgot if there were blood cubes. There were also gluten stuff inside. The soup was rather strong, so I asked if they have rice to go with it. The aunty said people in Beijing don't eat rice..... But she did sold me a bowl anyway. It was super filling. I didn't really life it that much cause it was rather meaty and gamey. 

Cold drinks with ice was kinda hard to find in Beijing. We found it at Mixue near our hotel, but they gave just 1/4 cup of ice inside, which quickly melted. I drank Mixue a few times during the trip just for the ice. I realised I was pretty addicted to ice! Anyway, I took teh straw wrapping of Mixue caue I though it was cute and cheesy. I don't think we have the same in Malaysia. I though it was sweet. 

I did eventually bought the Beijing Yogurt from a small grocery store near our hotel which stores it inside a fridge area. It was pretty cheap, and sooooo delicious that I ate it a few more times and also still miss the taste of it. I hope I can visit Beijing again when I am old. It would be so nostalgic to be able to eat all those food again, even though it was only my first day in Beijing! I was already so in love with the food here.

And what is Beijing Food without Beijing Duck? Walked pass this store with the food looking chef inside preparing the dish. Beijing Duck was definitely on my to-eat list! And I had to keep nagging my husband that we have to try this dish. The husband has the impression that it would be expensive, since it was an expensive dish in Singapore, and most Chinese countries. But we had to at least try it once in Beijing! So stay tune for that!

Beijing 2024 - Muji Hotel and Miniature Exhibition

 

While making our way back from QianMent back to our hotel, we walked from the subway station towards Dashilan Street again, and came across a Muji Hotel which we've never noticed before in the early morning. To be frank, being a Japanese brand, the while place didn't really stand out like those shops in Dashilan St. Muji Hotel actually just blended in among the historical old buildings.  I was excited to go in and take a look because I've never seen a Muji Hotel before, even though I've read about it online.

The hotel did not disappoint. There was a lobby, and a check in area. There were restaurant and cafe, as well as a shop. There was also an exhibition area on the ground floor. Of course we couldn't visit any of the guest room to take a look at the aesthetics of the room to verify if it was also in Muji style, lol. Trust me, I would have love that! I felt that they should at least show some of the room photos to advertise it.

Anyway, we spend some time at the exhibition area, and it was a miniature exhibition with a twist. The twist was, each exhibition uses a Muji product in their display. So for example above is Muji biscuits! Cute right? I was also excited when I saw a similar exhibition back in Singapore when I was back, but it was displaying Singapore tourist attraction in miniature, and also utilising Muji products! 

Here are some Muji brush.

And this was my favourite, curry and naan! A popular Muji food product for the Japanese. What I love about this was, the miniature people inside were actually Indians! Like from India! Skin tone and dressing as well! Cause if you look very closely, you could see some of the ladies wearing saree! How cool is that! Love the details!

Lastly, took this souvenir shop of some Japanese looking drawing of Muji Hotel. Cool to the max!

Beijing 2024 - Night View of Qian Men (前门) Area

 

Since we managed to explore Dashilan and QianMen by late afternoon, I suggested that we took a walk after dinner to see how far Tiananmen Square was. Most of the main tourist attractions were clustered around here, hence that was one of the criteria for selecting our hotel too. We were supposed to visit the Forbidden City the next day, which was also a walking distance from there. I thought doing a recee of the area would be good as we needed to get there early in the morning.

Walking out of QianMen area, we found a few beautiful old buildings along some back alley ways. I always though such grand western style buildings can only be found in Shanghai. I was pleasantly surprised to see them here in Beijing. They were elegant and gave out such classic vibe.

Walking around the area, we also came across one of the old Beijing Railway Station. This was just a small one. The main Railway Station was huge when we went by it by bus one day. But the small station has such an elegant building structure that I just had to snap a photo of it.

The actual QianMen up close and personal. These 'men' or gates are typical features in Chinese, Korean and Japanese ancient cities. They are used as checkpoints and security post long time back. Since Beijing are separated into circular districts, with the Forbidden City at the center of it, there are a few gates to guard against people going in and out of the city.

Here is a night view of QianMen when it's all lighted up at night. I don't know why, but it reminded me of Seoul Korea, lol. Mainly cause my first encounter with such a structure was actually in Seoul when I was 23 years old. 

We also saw the People's Hall and Tiananmen Square area from a distance. There were so much security boundaries all over the place that it was almost impossible to walk there at all! On the map, it was a short 20 minutes walk to get to the square. But with all the security closed off, we couldn't get it. Too many detours and security check everywhere. Each security check point requires us to show our passport to get through. We later found out that there was actually a China-Africa Conference being held, hence the high security of the whole city. Yikes, I guess I have to find alternate route to get to where I need to be the next day!

But first, let me take a wefie! Us in front of QianMen before it got too dark.