After walking past 1.4 billion people, up and down steps for the underground road crossings, numerous security checks and I can't emphasize enough how many people, we arrived at the the largest public Square in the world! Half a mile long and I am not sure how wide (although it would be half a mile if it were a square) of... square. There was people absolutely everywhere, and I am sure between everyone there in the hour that we were, there must have been a few million photos taken! A few hawkers were trying to sell fans, postcards, hats, and our favorite, a Mao watch (where he waved with each passing second), but we didn't get anything just yet.
The oddest part about the square came in the form of a little boy, standing right in the middle of the square who appeared to be squeezing a small stream of water out of his bottle close to us as we walked by. Weird, we thought as we passed by about two feet from him, before realizing that it was not water from his water bottle, but it was urine. Too late, already on my shoes (Alastair). A little laugh later, we headed on towards the Forbidden City.
The Forbidden City was built for the Emperor, I think... Well, maybe I am not so sure but this isn't a history blog, it is the McKee's! So yeah, we hadn't really researched it before we came which we are glad about, because we had no idea how big it was going to be. Beautiful, detailed buildings lined a huge courtyard where masses of people (as usual) were taking pictures and being as amazed as we were. We took a bunch of pictures of these beautiful buildings with incredible roofs and intricate designs, then headed to what we thought was the exit. Well it was not the exit, but turned out to be the entrance to the next building lined courtyard. These just went on and on and on, can't even remember how many, but I know we felt like we walked all day! We were completely amazed, those emperors made sure they had enough space, that's for sure.
Well we hiked up this artificial hill made by the earth moved to make the Forbidden City's moat and tried on some Royal clothes. Worth it! But you can see in the back of the picture (through the haze) how big the Forbidden City is. All of those red roofed buildings are part of the Forbidden City, and there are more too that you can't see. Absolutely amazing!