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Visiting the Forbidden City

Challis Hackley
Dec 11, 2017
5 min read

You might remember that I was in Beijing not too long ago and during that week in China's capital, I visited the Forbidden City (aka the Palace Museum) on Thursday. Here's what my day looked like.

The Forbidden City, finally! Thursday was a long day, probably because we started early. We wanted to make sure that we were there early enough to buy tickets so we got up at around 4:00 AM so that we could take the forty-five minute metro ride to the enter of the city and get through the security checkpoints before the gates opened. We got there at around 6:00 AM and people were running towards the city center and we thought that we should run to because they must want to get tickets before the sell out. So we get there and push our was as close to the barrier as possible. And there was a sea of selfie sticks facing the road, we thought we had the worst luck and there was going to be a parade or something and we would get caught up and not be able to get into the city. All the selfie sticks were poised as the sun rose. It turns out that there is a flag raising ceremony at sunrise. So around 6:15 a squad or smartly dressed troops exited the Forbidden City and marched across the street to the flagpole at Tiananmen Square and raised the flag.

Not many people left after that, well, a lot of people could have left I guess but I was still pressed into the crowd like a sardine so I wouldn't have been able to tell. and we waited for another fifteen minutes or so before they opened the gates and we could cross the bridge and enter the outer courtyard. Now we got in to the ticket area, but nothing was open, we expected this but we didn't know when it would open and we were getting mixed signals. After we had tried to go on Wednesday, we had tried to buy tickets online but the online sales were sold out through the end of the week but the site said that there would still be a limited number of tickets for sale at the Forbidden City itself. When we had first gone to get tickets on Wednesday, we found a sign at the ticket office telling us that tickets were sold out and that they would be on sale again the next day at 8:00 AM. The sign in the courtyard, however, said 8:30.

So we hung around the ticket office and the place where the sign had been posted last time we came. By 7:00 AM, we had made some new friends, foreigners who could speak English, an Argentinian backpacker, buying tickets for him and his mother, and a couple from Spain. They also didn't know where we were supposed to be to buy tickets so we compared notes and continued to wait, chatting each other up. As this was happening, crowds began to gather at the front fence separating the courtyard front he ticket check and the entrance to the Forbidden City (known as the Meridian Gate) but we were still hanging out by the ticket office waiting for any sign that it was going to open up.We figured those people already had tickets and were just waiting for it to actually open. Even so, we sent out scouting parties to see if they could find any more information, while the main group remained behind to save out spot if it decided to open up while they were gone. A few people came by and took pictures of us and with us but otherwise, nothing else was happening. Th ticket office looked as dark and empty as when we got there.

At around 7:20, a worker in a blue uniform noticed us and asked if we were trying to buy tickets. Of course! Where do we go? Looking back on it, he made a rather vague gesture to the right side of the crowd that was waiting at the fence, but at the time he was an angel from heaven sent to guide us to our destination. So this time we set out, leaving no member behind as we went out in search of the ticket office. We searched and joined in with lines, from there we sent out scouting parties to see if they could find the foreign-passport-holder ticket office because somewhere along the lien we had found out that there was a separate ticket office for us. We got separated and there were conflicting reports as people said that this was the ticket office or that was the ticket office and we were all cracking under the pressure.

And then the gates opened.

The people flooded past, all of the tour groups making there way for the ticket check station, all of them gripping those valuable slips of paper that would get them entrance. I got separated from the group and was trying to follow glimpses of them through the crowd as we made out way thought the gate and towards a squat building at the side that one of our scouting reports claimed was where we were finally supposed to be. I held my breath as I waited in line, pulling out my passport and money and student ID. I watched as the first of out group, our new backpacking friend, approached the counter. He pointed at ticket prices, handed her money and passports .. and got two tickets back, one for him and one for his mother.

We had found it! Success! Our friend turned to us with a smile and bid us goodbye. With a kiss on each of our cheeks, he was gone, off the fetch his mother He was gone, and enter the Forbidden City. He was gone and we didn't even know his name. And thus it was, in the Seventh hour of the day, the Fellowship Foreigners, though eternally bound by friendship and love, was ended.

Sorry, I got a bit carried away. I watched Lord of the Rings before I wrote this and was in a bit of a dramatic mood. I promise the rest will not be as detailed as or dramatic.

Anyways, so we finally got into the Forbidden City. There are four large courtyards with different central halls and then plenty of branching courtyards and gardens. The whole thing is massive. Here are just some quick stats to give you an idea. The Forbidden City is the world's largest palace complex. It covers 178 acres (720,000 square meters) and has a floor space of 1.6 million square feet (150 K square meters). It is huge, so understandably, we spent most of our day there.

So we entered the first court with the five marble bridges and wandered around in awe, snapping a few pictures before we made our way to the side courts and the art exhibits they had there.

We saw the inner courts, the side courts, the imperial gardens and exited through the Gate of Divine Prowess. The imperial gardens were particularly cool. Where before we had been surrounded by stone and walls, we now found towering trees and intricate rock formations. They have these cool, porous rocks all across China, I've seen them in all my travels.

It's honestly hard to describe what we saw that day in an exciting way that will make you want to go and visit it. We just walked around and took pictures, ate food, made some new friends, and kissed statues. We really did not do anything super exciting but it was honesty extraordinary. The architecture and care that was taken in the constructions the shear size, we were always a little lost. I could feel the weight of history there like nowhere else I have been. Everything is grand, nothing done halfway. Words and pictures can't really capture it.