The Cube

This was our waiting place :P

Also known as Chairman Mao Memorial Hall is the final resting place for Chair Mao, or referred to as Grandpa Mao (毛爷爷) by the younger generation.



This mausoleum is located in the middle of Tiananmen Square in Beijing and open half day (8am to 12pm) from Tuesday to Sunday.

Only ID and mobile phone are allowed inside the mausoleum. The balance of things, like camera, bags, etc if you carry them, you will have to deposit at deposit area before queueing up to get in. Entrance to the mausoleum itself is free but one will have to pay a fee for deposit, extra for cameras for safety precaution.

Initially we queued up to deposit our bags as we thought it might take a while to get in and out. However after spoken to a lady who works there, we decided against it. After all, I was travelling with sis, so we took turns to take care of things and going in.

The first photo was where we set as our meeting/waiting place, just in front of the statue so we won't get lost, also it was near the exit of mausoleum.

正阳门, Zhengyangmen

Opposite Chairman Mao's Mausoleum, one can find this gate - Zhengyangmen. This gate was part of the old city wall that was demolished in late 1960s.

There was a bit of a crowd, makes me wonder if China citizens actually pay respect to Chairman Mao everyday but the queue moved fairly fast. This place was fully guarded and we were urged to move faster, also no photographs were allowed. One needs a valid ID to enter the hall but they only check randomly. Mobile phones needs to be switched off or silenced.

There were stalls selling flowers as one approached the entrance of the mausoleum. The flowers could be placed in front of Chairman Mao's statue in the hall, just right before the room with his casket. I can't help thinking if they collect those flowers and re-sell them.

We took a bus to there despite there was a subway station right in front of the mausoleum. We were just being silly, as this station is under Line 2, which is even more convenient for us as the subway station near our hostel was also under Line 2. The bus we took stopped at Qianmen, I read that there is a famous pedestrian street there, shame we didn't walk that far. Next time!



Side note: Sakura mochi now... all these J drama not doing good for food cravings :/

The red caps

Our second day itinerary was easy, just one item - The Forbidden City, or currently referred to as Gùgōng, 故宫 (Palace Museum).

Maybe we did take our own sweet time, or maybe with holidays mode switched on, by the time we reached Forbidden City, it was swarmed with people, and tour groups segregated by caps or hat of different colours.

Despite the very obvious red wall, we were apprehensive of entering the wrong site (LOL!) and sis sent me to confirm with one of the locals who were standing around. It was rather embarassing if I just asked, "Is this the Forbidden City?"

After all, we have seen the red wall numerous times on TV, even on dramas. Anyway, I did ask, though in a more subtle, "Is this the entrance to get into the Forbidden City?" :P


紫禁城 (Zǐjìnchéng) or literally translated as Purple Forbidden City. I have always wonder what's with the purple but google comes to help, as usual. Ancient Chinese Astronomers believed that Purple Star (Polaris) was in the center of heaven, and the Heavenly Emperor lived there. Emperors at that time were considered to be the earth counterpart of Heavenly Emperor, therefore the word purple. "Forbidden" because no one was allowed to enter or go out without permission from the emperor.

One said, "If you have not been to the Great Wall, you have not been to China."
In my humble opinion, I feel it would be "If you have not been to the Forbidden City, you have not been to Beijing." After all, Forbidden City is at the very heart of Beijing. This impressive complex is chokeful of history - completed in 1420, where 24 emperors ruled for nearly 500 years.


We entered via Meridian Gate (Wu Men, 午门). This was where the Emperor would review his armies and perform ceremonies marking the start of a new calender during Ming and Qing Dynasties. The central doorway was for the exclusive use of Emperors in Ming and Qing Dynasties. An Empress coulud enter this doorway once, on her wedding day. Aside from that, as a special honour, the top three scholars of the civil service examinations at that time, would be permitted to exit through this door after their interview with the emperor.

Apparently it is common to hear in some TV shows or movies that one is beheaded at the Meridian Gate. I have not heard it, or even if I had, I must've conveniently let it slide and not registered in my head. However I heard that twice on the day I visited the Forbidden City. Anyway, that was not a true event. As how my sis put it, it was very unlikely for the emperor to allow execution to be performed at where he review his armies, no? ;)

A personal tour guide was probably too costly for us. We opted for the audio guide, at 20 RMB each.


The audio guide was based on auto detection, it will detect your location and started playing once you crossed a certain area. The explanation didn't start even though we were at a certain hall, unless we crossed a certain beam. We didn't know that initially, but it appeared that we were not the only clueless one as we heard a girl asking her friends as well. :P

This auto-detection thingy probably sound a little high tech but the down side was that we can't control when the audio guide would start playing, and no repeats available. :(
In spite of that, I think the audio guide was a great tool in helping me to appreciate this magnificent complex better than just strolling through. Otherwise, the halls will probably just look the same, one after another.

Hall of Supreme Harmony (Taihe Dian, 太和殿)

I won't write about each and every hall in this city within a city, but here are some little details and makes this place even more superb.

I am rather fascinated with this roof figures thingy, so I did some reading on it.



See the roof guardians?

I put up a different picture of these roof guardians in my earlier post on Yiheyuan, that picture showed of a roof with only seven roof beasts. This one, on the roof of Hall of Supreme Harmony (Taihe Dian, 太和殿) has the maximum number of beast - nine. The number of beasts indicating the importance of the duties performed within the building or within the courtyard protected by a gate.

The first one is a man riding on a phoenix, followed by nine beasts. The one before the imperial dragon is not a beast but an immortal holding a sword or staff signifying the wish for peace and harmony. This immortal figure is said to be unique to the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

The last figure in the row is the large dragon figure of the chiwen (鴟吻, chīwěn). Chiwen is one of the sons of the dragon king. It protects the building from fire by commanding the waters of heaven and earth.

Gate of Heavenly Purity (Qianqing Men, 乾清门) written in Chinese and Manchurian

Lions in front of Gate of Heavenly Purity (Qianqing Men, 乾清门)

The male lions were potrayed with a ball under his paw, while the female lion has a lion cub. Yup, so the one further away in the photo is a male lion. It was said that the lions in front of this Gate of Heavenly Purity is slightly different from the rest. The ears of the lions were not 'perked' up as the rest of the statues to serve as a reminder for the concubines or court ladies to stay out of government affairs in the Outer Court. After all, Gate of Heavenly Purity leads to the Inner Court.
(Note: Inner Court - Emperor and royal families living area)

Here's a photo of a female lion, located in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony (Taihe Dian, 太和殿) for comparison.


Oh, and the doors for imperial use usually contain 81 brass studs. Odd numbers represent yang (masculine element associated with the emperor). In addition, nine being the highest of odd number, therefore nine times nine are especially lucky :)


It feel surreal to walk in a forbidden palace built in the Ming Dynasty. There were times when I thought to myself, "Is this really from a few centuries ago?" Or am I walking in some old China Dynasty theme park? For now, it is real though there have been changes made to this place. For example, I read that the two side doors (there were five doors initially) at Meridian Gate (Wu Men, 午门) has been reconstructed as toilets.

With that, here's a photo of the iconic red wall of this palace complex. Can you imagine a maid walking passed in the olden days? Grin, am sure it is not hard, with all the TV drama and movies filmed based on this complex ground :)



Side note: Totally random, but now I can do with a slice of Japanese strawberry shortcake :P

Getting to Yuanming Yuan by subway is easy, the tell tale subway station name Yuanmingyuan Park, on Line 4. If you can fit it in, one can get to Yuanming Yuan after Yiheyuan as it is only a station or two away.

If you enter Yiheyuan from Beigongmen station, you will most likely to exit via the opposite gate which is nearest to Xiyuan station, unless you double back. Then Yuanmingyuan would only be a station away and vice versa.



Literally translate as Garden of Perfect Brightness, this garden was the garden palace complex gifted by the Kangxi Emperer to his fourth son Yinzhen, the future Yongzheng Emperor. However it was his grandson (Yongzheng Emperor's son), Hongli, the Qianlong Emperor who has make major changes to the landscape.


If you visit Yuanming Yuan in current days, aside from some random sites and of course the ticket counter, it might just look like a huge, charming lake garden.


Going with the name Old Summer Palace, I was expected something along the line of Yiheyuan (Summer Palace), how wrong was I. To be fair, sis told me that we will see some ruins in Yuanming Yuan, but I was expecting something like this.

Don't worry, you are not going mad - this is not in China, still very much in Macau

Unfortunately, it was more like this.


These ruins were found in the Western Mansions section (Xiyang Lou, 西洋楼). The traditional Chinese halls were burned and European-style buildings were pulled down during the Second Opium War. 


Only the Palace Maze has been recreated in concrete. This maze was given the name 10,000-flower maze (Wanhua Zhen, 萬花陣). In its centre sits a European-style circular pavillion. It was said that the emperor would sat in this pavilion to watch his concubines competing in a race with yellow lanterns through the labyrinth during Mid-Autumn Festival.


To get to the centre, take the path that leads to the right if you come through the entrance from South Gate.

There is however, a miniature model showing the garden in its glory days.


By the way, have you watched Jackie Chan's latest movie, Chinese Zodiac? I personally think the movie is nothing to shout about, and I am not promoting it, just wanting to highlight the 12 bronze Chinese zodiac statues in the movie.

These are definitely replicates - there are still missing 'heads'

In the days of Emperor Qianlong's reign, he had comissioned Italian Jesuit painter to design and build European-style fountains and palaces. In Hall of Calm Sea (Haiyantang, 海晏堂) featured a fountain with twelve animals head of the Chinese zodiac.


These animals' head were attached to a robed, cross-legged human bodies and water would spout out of the mouth of each for two hours daily in accordance to China's twelve two-hour time-dividing system, acting as the a water clock. All the animals jetted water simutaneously at noontime.

To be honest, I actually find the animals head attached to human bodies a bit scary. Sorry!


Standing amongst the ruin, I can imagine Yuanmingyuan in its glory days. I find it sad to see the ruins of such a historical importance site, those broken marble slabs and rubbles serve as a cruel reminder of such a loss.

There is a gate (East Gate) nearer to Xiyang Lou but there is no subway station close by, we retraced our steps back to the South Gate. We asked a kind uncle [sis told me to call him 叔叔 (shushu) instead of 'uncle' despite it means the same thing] for directions to get back to the South Gate, he gave impeccable directions!

The sun was setting and it was probably not the brightest idea to stick around in this big park in the dark but can't help taking a few more pictures. So I'm sticking a couple more here :P




Side note: I am so peckish...

Following the previous post, here are some of the sights within this extensive ground of Summer Palace.

Suzhou Market Street (Suzhoujie, 苏州街)

If you travelled to Yíhé Yuán by subway, you will end up entering via North Palace Gate (Beigongmen, 北宫门) like us and start your way from Suzhou Market Street.


This are is named as Suzhou Market Street simply because it was constructed to mimic the market street in Suzhou. It was said that when the imperial family were there, maids, etc would act as peddlars or shop keepers of those shops. I wonder if they kept the 'acting' real, including paying for the things they purchase. Most of the shops are either souvenir shops or eateries.



葫芦 (húlu), wiki said it is call Calabash in English (I didn't know prior to this) - we thought they were edible fruit (if it was we would have bought it to try) but was told these were toys.

According to this website, this street was built by Emperor Qianlong to make one of his concubines happy when she was home sick. The 'concubine' in this story was a nun from Suzhou.

Front gate

Abundance of fishes

Yíhé Yuán was initially known as 'Garden of Clear Ripples' (Qīngyī Yuán, 清漪園) back in 1750, reign Year 15 of Qianlong Emperor. It has a large natural mountain and water landscape, dominated by Longevity Hill (Wàn Shòu Shān; 万寿山 and Kunming Hu (昆明湖).

As early as Liao and Jin Dynasties, there were already palaces built at the site at Xiang Shan (香山) and 玉泉山. In Yuan Dynasty, Longevity Hill was named as Weng Shan (瓮山) from Gold Mountain. Weng Shan was named so due to its urn-like appearance, as Weng Shan is literally translated as Urn Mountain.

Legend has it that a jar with treasure was found inside this Weng Shan. The founder inscribed the following inside the jar "When this earthen jar is moved, the emperor's decline shall begin." It was said that the loss of this jar coincided with the fall of Ming Dynasty, during Jiajing period as predicted by the founder of the jar.

To make things even more complicated, Emperor Zhengde of the Ming changed the name back to Gold Mountain during his reign. During Qing Dynasty, Qianlong Emperor erected Temple of Gratitute [edit: I believe it is now known as Hall of Dispelling Clouds / Paiyun Dian] and renamed the mountain to Longevity Hill in commemoration of his mother's 60th birthday.

At the south of Longevity Hill, the low-lying land at the bottom of the hill accumulated water from springs of Jade Spring Mountain (Yuquan Shan, 玉泉山), forming a sizable lake. This lake was named as Wengshan Pool, and renamed as West Lake (Xi Hu, 西湖) in Ming Dynasty.

Emperor Qianlong then expanded the scale of this lake, and named it Kunming Lake in 1750. The story as to why it was so named (Kunming Lake) was that Emperor Wudi of Han Dynasty dugged an artificial Kunming Lake for a navy battle practise in the ancient capital of Chang'an (present day Xian). Kunming Lake was named in reminiscent of this artificial lake previously. At the same time, Longevity Hill was also renamed.

The palace complex suffered two major attacks during the Anglo-French allied invasion of 1860 and Boxer Rebellion in 1900. The garden survived and rebuilt. In 1888, Empress Dowager Cixi diverted 30 milion taels of silver originally for the navy to reconstruct and expansion of this garden. It was given its current name by her - Yíhé Yuán. Yíhé Yuán served as a summer resort for Empress Dowager Cixi, therefore I assume also known as Summer Palace now.

She had the southern side of Longevity Hill laid out in imitation of West Lake of Hangzhou and northern face in the architecture style of Suzhou.

In an even more short summary, the naming and renaming goes like this:
Qīngyī Yuán -- Yíhé Yuán
Gold Mountain -- Weng Shan (Urn Mountain) -- Gold Mountain -- Wàn Shòu Shan (Longevity Hill) **Note: I have absolutely no idea how it turned from a mountain to a hill though.
Wengshan Pool -- West Lake -- Kunming Lake

Guardian figures on a roof, this one has 7 figures in between the dragon and the man riding on phoenix

Are you still reading? Grin, I hope so. Anyway, I don't know if anyone actually finish all the sights in Yíhé Yuán. Maybe we have little legs, maybe we proscratinate too much or spent too long taking photos, reading the description of the place, we didn't manage to see everything in this 290 hectares (716 acres) ground. However, if you need to skip some of the places due to time constrain, there are couple of major sites not to be missed. Next post will be on some sites that we visited.

We took subway to North Palace Gate (Beigongmen, 北宫门), once exiting the station, you will be approached by guides, many guides. I am not entirely sure if they are authorised but we have decided not to engage one, so we declined all of them and walked straight on.

Most will tell you to get only the basic entrance tickets and "save" the balance of money to have a guide. Separate tickets are required for certain major sites inside this Summer Palace. Some of them will tell you that you will need to walk pass a hill to get to the major sites, therefore engaging their service will save you from unnecessary walks. There is some truth in that - as in needing to pass through a 'hill' but fear not, if me with short legs and non existence stamina can crossed that, there is little to worry about. :)


Side note: Choya umeshu extra years costs $45... takaii :(

Warning: This will be a boring post on stay and logistic.

We stayed in a simple, no nonsense hostel named Beijing 235, ¥200 a night. Sis made booking via whatsapp. Yes, you didn't read wrongly, the room reservation was made via whatsapp. Very up to date. However we did ask for a confirmation letter for visa application.

Corridor leading to our room

Silly me didn't take a picture of the front door but you can see it on their website. Also no pictures of the room, because we crashed to bed straightaway on the night (or rather, morning) we arrived. Simple room, 2 beds, 1 bathroom. It was one of those bathroom with no specific shower area, just a shower head so the bathroom floor would be wet.

It is located in Andingmen nei (安定門內), about 10 minutes walk to Andingmen (安定門) train station (Line 2). Bus stop was a very short stroll away. There is also a designated train ticket booking office nearby, just a block down across the street.


Transport wise, it is definitely worth it to grab one of those Beijing Transport Card, to avoid queuing to purchase tickets every time, on top of the security check and 60% discount on bus fares. Subways are fixed at ¥2 regardless of distance (no discount on subway fare but it is economical enough). Bear in mind though, only certain stations process the refund.


Side note: Doraemon museum ^ ^