DAY TWO--forbidden city/tian an men/heaven temple
this is beijing's national threatre, shaped like an EGG..
the shape resembles that of our durian esplanade..

behind me is the father of china..mr mao!!
tian an men square is super large..we took almost 4hours to walk finish the whole forbidden city..there are 9000 rooms in there..just for the emperor and his concubines..each big gate has 3 openings-center one for the emperor, the left and right for the princes and his subordinates..
the buildings are so huge, just to accomodate one man, one purpose..
after visiting all the exhibits and all, i conclude that the chinese waste alot of time doing a lot of useless things..
like craving a small piece of wood, then because it's so beautiful, they have to make a nice stand to display it, and because it's so precious, then they further have to make a nice box/case to store that item!
also i conclude that the emperor's things are decorated with dragons (9 always), and then 5 bats (wu fu), butterflies for the empress, squirrel and grapes (yuan man), deers..
then all these animals and insects are painted on vases, crockery, paintings..
100 butterflies, 100 deers..and there are no replicas, no 2 butterflies are alike..
waste time, waste effort!!

what a big door!! use so much wood, kill trees!!

built a artificial mountain in the emperor's garden, just for landscape purpose

there are 118 such big pots all around the palace..to collect rain water..in case of fire..
these pots are gold plated..what a luxury!

a big hall just to contain one chair
this 9 dragon stone craving is the largest in the world..crave from one stone slab..and how was it being transported? during winter time, they splash water on the ground to form ice, and then slide and glide the whole slab to the palace..travelled a long way!!

intertwined trees (lian ying shu) supposed that if a couple takes a photo beneath it, they will be blessed and loving always.



the heaven temple (tian tan)..built without any nails, just joints!
we didn't pay the admission to enter the temple, so we were walking around the parameter of it in the park..searching for a gap in the walls and trees to capture a shot of the temple..and tada!
*boy oh boy..does china like to do such useless things..chop 100year old trees, waste manpower to transport materials, goods from miles away..*