Two enormous places with so much history

First day in Beijing. What else is there to do besides head straightaway for the Forbidden City and thence to Tianenmen Square? Nothing, as far as we could surmise.

The entrance alone to the Forbidden City is immense. It took us twenty minutes of walking past hawkers and around tour groups to reach the actual front gate. Once inside, though, it was an awe-inspiring sea of red buildings with yellow roofs.

The architecture was ornate throughout. Some of the ceilings had such detailed work done that I could tell we weren't fully appreciating the craftsmanship from our distance.

It was neat to learn a bit more about the emperor's life style, which had so much mandatory pomp and circumstance to it. Take eating, a core theme of this blog.

For each meal, the emperor would be presented with at least twenty dishes, often more than forty. Each would be presented in a bowl in front of him. By rule, he could not eat more than two bites from any one dish, as that would evidence favorites and could lead to a poisoning attempt. With Emperor Puyi, chronicled in the film The Last Emperor, this was all for show, and then he would head back to his private characters and have a simple meal. What ana amazing way to live.

Later on, we found the neat Nine Dragon Screen, which was essentially a bas relief mural of differently colored dragons.

But my favorite place was at the end of our time in the City. Barely, with one minute to spare, we made our entry into the Hall of Clocks. Contained within were a number of absolutely astonishing timepieces.

Some were whimsical, like this hot air balloon clock sent by expert French clockmakers.

Some were scientific, like this clock that had a working model of the solar system within, with the various planets rotating around the sun as time passed.

And others were clocks from ages past, such as this water clock used to measure time centuries ago.

From that experience in the Forbidden City we walked south, across the street to Tianenmen Square.

Looking back, we could see Tian'en Men ("men" here signifying a gate). This famous gate still contains a large portrait of Mao with two Communist slogans on either side.

The square itself is quite large. It is made even larger, and slightly more bizarre, by the two huge jumbotrons. There is also a tremendous amount of security on the square. Each light pole had at least five security cameras, some as many as nine. The square itself is bracketed by the Great Hall of the People (a legislative chamber), Mao's Mausoleum, and the China History Museum.

This quintessential Beijing tourist day ended with the official lowering of the flag ceremony. To complete this, they shut down traffic on the very busy thoroughfare between Tianenmen Square and the Forbidden City. Then, two rows of soldiers march perfectly across the street. One, the color guard leader, performs an intricate series of steps to lower and fold the flag, from whence it is carried across the street and through the gate.

It is easy to feel the government throughout this square.