Forbidden City 2.6 - The Last Entry

This is the last entry of the Forbidden City series. I am sorry if ONE of you got bored.

Pffftttt........

In all, I spent a total of almost 12 hours over 2 days, on my feet wandering the Forbidden City. It was most educational.

As huge as the entire place is, every single intricate detail was not spared. A tilt of the head upwards and you will be awed by the massively detailed carvings on the ceiling.

My only regret is as much as words are put into describing the place, one still has to personally go to the Forbidden City to fully experience it.

One being the sense of smell. I love the bouquet of centuries-aged sandalwood, and perhaps a hint of camphor as well, that covers the entire place like a thin layer of fog. It's a indescribable feeling of serenity to stand there, enveloped by it.......

.... until the pesky tourist jostled you out of the way. Pffttttt......

My parting thought as I completed the visit was thinking about the value of this Forbidden City. The antique treasures and all. Let's not even get into the value of the real estate of which the Capital is built around this Forbidden City aka, this is the smack center of the Capital.

And for the Last Emperor Puyi and the Empress Dowager to lose it all, they must have really screwed up big time.

As gloom as it may sound, it is also somewhat a blessing in disguise since if not for the fall of the monarchy, none of us would have been able to appreciate the entire city both inside and out today.

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- Voxeros

Forbidden City 2.5 - Pine Tree and Stupa

When someone mentions a big tree, one would normally visualise it as a big TALL and possibly one with a super duper thick trunk.

Well, I came across this pine tree and it was big in a different sense. Yes, it is rather tall but not as tall as those ancient trees that we can find in those national parks. It was big because it was very very wide. The span of the leaves and branches easily reaches 30 metres or even more. I can't really put a finger on it.

All I remembered was that I had to stand very very far away just so that I can fit the entire tree into the camera's viewfinder. Then again, as you can see in the picture, I still couldn't fit it in.

The trunks, according to the description sign below, is only a mere 60cm. With all the weight that spans the entire width of foliage, the trunk would probably snap and easily, if I may add.

What you can't really see properly, in the picture, is that under the trees are steel scaffolding helping the tree to prop up all the branches.

Interesting bit of nature there in the Forbidden City.

I learned many new words during my visit to the Forbidden City and the word "stupa" was one of them.

A stupa is a Buddhist structure that commonly has some kind of a Buddhist relic or something of religious significance inside.

This is going to be useful the next time I play scrabble. Haha.

Anyway, the reason I feature this picture was the crescent moon on top that caught my eye.

I was thinking if that was a symbol of the Islamic faith? I was wondering how cool it would be to be part of an item of the Buddhist faith.

Perhaps the doctrine of co-existing religions in harmony?

I wonder.


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- Voxeros

Forbidden City 2.4 - Nine-Dragons Wall

The Nine-Dragons Wall isn't totally unfamiliar to me as I have seen replicas elsewhere around the world. The nearest to the folks in Singapore would be the one located at the Singapore Chinese Chamber Of Commerce at Hill Street.

The other replica that I have seen would be at, believe it or not, North Carolina, USA.

There was a write-up about the wall which you can click the picture on the right to get a bigger enlargement.

So there I was taking my time to go up close and study each of the nine dragons and this one particular has something peculiar about it.

It is the third dragon counting from the left. A white dragon.

The bottom section of this particular dragon's body didn't quite fit in with the rest of the body. It doesn't have the sheen as expected of a glazed tile, granted that the tiles have all been weathered for centuries.

A closer look and I realised that it is probably made of wood rather than glazed tile that it was originally meant to be. I can seen the grain of the wood and wait. Is that nails I see embedded inside?

What I learned was that legend has it that during the construction of this wall, this particular piece of tile was accidentally broken by one of the masons.

A replacement tile would have been impossible as every piece of tile is unique like in a jigsaw puzzle. Remaking the tile would take too long, if it were possible in the first place.

Bear in mind, it was an era where people were put to death for the slightest reason. Just think how many people died while constructing the Great Wall. How would this be any different?

So it was speculated that in the masons' attempt to cover up this catastrophe, they replicated the tile in wood. With the same glazed paint, no one would be able to spot the difference when it was relatively new.

Alas, different materials deteriorated differently under years', decades', centuries' worth of sun, rain, snow and sleet that the hush-up finally surfaced.

Interesting story.


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- Voxeros

Forbidden City 2.3 - World Peace

The physical vase was not there in the Forbidden City. It is presently on display in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.

It was presented to the big wigs at IOC back in 2004.

Granted that it was just a picture on the wall but somehow it just caught my eye.

The name of the vase is 世界和瓶 which literally translate to World Harmony Vase. It is also a pun play on 世界和平 (World Peace).

Very apt since the Olympic Spirit centers around the philosophy of world peace and harmony.


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- Voxeros

Forbidden City 2.2 - Timepieces

History has it that Emperor QianLong was an avid timepiece collector so much so that I felt that he has an OCD obsession with them. He had such a big collection that they were enough to form a museum of clock and watches standalone.

The museum charges an additional RMB 10 for entry within the Forbidden City which I had earlier paid to get in.

These were intricate masterpieces of the finest mechanical engineering. There was even one clock that has a human robot that is able to write Chinese calligraphy flawlessly on the hour.

I was very impressed.

But there were a couple of observations that I have made.

I noticed that the designers of the clocks then to get carried away with the designing that the focus of it as a clock got lost somewhere along the way.

Look at the clock above. That is a pretty big clock about 2 feet high and note how tiny the clock face is. The clock face is around the size of a big wrist watch.

Hello? Focus much?

The second thing I noticed was that all the clocks used Roman numerals.

This clock above is a huge one at around a metre and a half and perhaps is one of the more unique ones.

Here's a close-up of the clock face. Notice anything different?

It has a 24-hour clock face instead of the usual 12.



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- Voxeros

Forbidden City 2.1 - Daily Items

In the Forbidden City, some of the palaces in both the East side and West doubled up as museums of artifacts used back then.

I came across this bowl made of gold and for some strange reason, I thought of our ministers' salaries. I wonder why. :P

We all heard of the saying born with a silver spoon. I think the royalties here lagi more tok kong. They got gold spoon ok!!

This item above is a roller massager dated back as early at the 17th century.

I took a closer look at the description placard and did a double-take. The Chinese description of this tool is 推胸 which literally translates to "Push Chest".

Suddenly, I was flooded with all the "massage chest" jokes that I used to kachow Starmist with.

Wahahahaahaha......


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- Voxeros

Forbidden City 2.0 - The Eighteen Arhats

Continuing from my earlier post, I decided to revisit the Forbidden City to finish up the rest of the tour since I wasn't able to complete during my first.

Yeah and I say again. The place is damn bladdy big.

This time round, I checked out the East palaces of the Forbidden City as well as the mini replica palace even further East where Emperor QianLong retired after passing the throne to his successor.

Anyway, this series of entries is not meant to be a virtual tour. I am sure there are websites out there that does a much better job than I do. Besides, I think there is too much material to cover to make this a even remotely credible tour review.

What I would do instead is to feature a few photos that have caught my eye, over the next few entries and share my thoughts on them.

So without further ado, we go to Photo No.1

I came across this exhibits of statues of the 十八罗汉. 18 high monks that I got to know from all the sword-fighting dramas and usually associated with the Shaolin Temple.

In every movie or serial drama, there will be these 18 monks that has this martial art formation by the same namesake that they either use it to defend the temple against aggressive intruders or when one of the temple's star pupil need to defeat in order to "graduate".

There are also the 十八铜人 or Eighteen Bronze Men which is a spin-off from 十八罗汉. Some movies depict them as mechanised robots which the star pupil must make it through the tunnel that is guarded by these 18 men. Other versions depicts them as monks with a bronze paint all over them.

As I look closer at the exhibit, I saw the English translation of what a 罗汉 is.

Arhat.

I am sorry but I first read it as The Eighteen Asshats.

Wahahahaahahaah.

Sorry.


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- Voxeros

Forbidden City

Went to check out the Forbidden City and whoa........ the place is damn freaking big!!

The entrance fee was RMB 60.00 (peak season) and I added another RMB 20.00 (for Mandarin narration. RMB 40.00 for foreign language e.g. English) for the headset that tells you the story as you walk around the place.

The device has some sort of the location device which will playback the story relevant to where you are.

I made the mistake of heading there after lunch as I didn't have enough time to complete the entire city.

Will have to go there again to complete the tour.

I was blessed with great weather and I expected a shitload of people but fortunately, it wasn't that bad as perhaps I was mentally prepared for the worst.

Security was tight as there were cameras everywhere and there was a security checkpoint prior to the entire to sieve out suspicious characters. Despite the overwhelming presence of "Big Brother", I  felt safe ironically.

This is 午门 which I reached after a rather length walk though the main entrance in the earlier picture. Just when I thought I reach the inside of the city, I realised this was only the South entrance.

I can imagine any officials reaching this gate thinking they finally reach their destination but nooo..... the emperor is still a long journey ahead. Must be really sian half to find out at this stage that you are not even half way there.

Yeah. This place is THAT freaking big.

This caught my eye. Fresh laundry belonging to the military guards, all nicely and orderly arranged.

More photos after I visit it again soon.

--> Click Here To See The Forbidden City Photo Set

- Voxeros