The Forbidden City

Day 5 * 19th May 2016 – City tour at the Forbidden City.

In the morning itself, we attended a lecture about Innovation & Entrepreneurship in China as the main topic for that session. After our morning session's lecture, we had our lunch with such generous servings and choices provided by Tsinghua as usual before we embark on an interesting journey in the afternoon. That afternoon itself was rather different and special as we did not have any visiting to companies like previous days. But rather, Tsinghua has arranged to bring us for a city tour around Forbidden City. 

It was really exciting as I was about to visit the Forbidden City again for the second time after my first visit 8 years ago. After all, there wasn't really much that I could remember from my last trip here and a lot of sections at the Forbidden City was sort of closed to the public due to maintenance purposes in preparation for the Beijing Olympics event back then. Therefore, I would be lying to you if I said I wasn't interested or looking forward at all to that city tour visit to the Forbidden City organised by the school.. 

Also, for those of you who don't already know this, as I don't really mention this often on my blog nor have I ever said it before (actually) – I am one who honestly appreciates Chinese history and loves listening to old tales that happened during those Dynasty-days. Sometimes, I would even get a bit too obsessed with certain historical information I've recently learnt about and would somehow seek ways of finding confirmation through "google" or by asking the elderly's who have heard about the stories or whatsoever, hah. Thus, it is not surprising that I often love spending my free time by watching dramas with storylines set back all the way in Qing/Han/Ming Dynasty times where the emperor, empress, and concubines etc plays a major role in the story. 

More often than not, I would somehow picture what and how would things turn out to be for me if I were born in those ancient times where emperor was still ruling the world and women had almost no power or rights in enriching themselves with education back then. However, I would never deny the fact that people back in those days were already so intelligent and creative in countless ways. The things they knew then and monuments they managed to build with the scarce resources as well as limited communication streams they had in comparison to whatever we possess at present never fail to impress and leave me in admiration whenever I visit sites of the ancient days. Hence, the tour and especially the decision of joining the Beijing's summer school course through UCL were exactly killing two birds with one stone ;) Heeh. 

And did I not mention this? The best part throughout our tour was, Tsinghua has selected one of the best tour guides in Beijing for us, Mr Kong, where he belongs to one of the descendants of Confucius, which is known as 孔子 in Mandarin.. In other words, his ancestor was the well-known Confucius that we all have read or heard about back in primary school days (if you've attended Chinese school like me) or the highly recognised philosophical system and teachings that some of you may have heard before – Confucianism, which was founded by Confucius. Well, I find that fact really cool somehow, knowing that someone's ancestor used to be someone SO important back in the Dynasty days :p 

Okay, okay.. Before I continue to go on&on without allowing my pictures to actually do the talking, I shall pause here for a moment. The following pictures are mostly all taken by my lovely friend, Chanont, who is an amazing photographer and a total sweetheart who was kind enough to take countless shots for almost everyone of us! :D 

I hope you like them :) Credits would of course go to him~ 

✗

Take 1 (Please excuse the messy-looking hair.)

Take 2

A big picture of the Tian'anmen Tower, taken using my iPhone 6.

*Peace* with Vania :D 

A picture of us girls from the course and a South Korean guy..

I think all of the students from the summer school course is in this picture!

Back shot.. Love the idea of how Chanont managed to capture this picture using such lightings!

This is obviously taken using my iPhone 6 camera, which explains the difference in quality of picture :p

Leslie, the photographer, took this picture of me using my iPhone 6, haha. Not bad..

All smiles for the big camera!

:)

Was trying to adjust my hair.. but failed.

Totally unprepared.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11

Some of us from UCL in this picture...

Another incomplete shot of us :)

- - -

The city tour to the Forbidden City was indeed a whole new experience all over again. It felt so good to be joining the tour with my course mates and friends, although there were some people who did not really enjoy it as much as I do. Haha. But whatever it is, I'm still glad that it did not turn out to be a boring tour as Mr Kong, our tour guide, definitely prepared well and fed us with a lot of great historical information and insights throughout our visit. The tour lasted until about 5 something in the evening, and by then, it was about time to have dinner. Therefore, we decided to stay back in the city centre, since following back our tour bus to the accommodation area at that hour would not be a great idea after all due to the massive traffic. As such, most of us decided to walk to Wangfujing (王府井) street, which was around the city centre where most big shopping malls and restaurants are nearby. Be sure to check this place out if you're looking for a night market experience with tons of street food and things to look at ;) 

For dinner that night, we decided to have Pecking duck together at one of the famous chain restaurants in Beijing, called Quanjude Roast Duck (全聚德). Although this has been one of the longest pecking duck places around, however, in my opinion, the service was not as good as the one I have received back at Duck de Chine where my friend, Yan Hong, has brought me to the other day. I would highly recommend you to go Duck de Chine for a finer, and better experience to have Pecking duck. Highly preferable for those of you who are not in a rush, and definitely would love to dine at your own pleasure :)

Here are some of the food pictures that I managed to take before we dug in; 

A cold chicken dish.. The taste was not too bad :)

Look at those skinnnnnsss *drools* 

OHMY. I wish I was still in Beijing again... T.T

What's a meal without some desserts? Well, our friend ordered an assorted selection of Chinese desserts that was really different, in a good way. 

I think that's about it for now... Heh, hope you guys enjoyed the pictures, although I did not have much descriptions or captions to give at all. Stay tuned, for my next update! 

✗