“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” - Miriam Beard

*Note: Two new posts today.. Don't forget to keep scrolling after this first post. :)

Post by: Beth

To finish up the Beijing posts, I wanted to share some pictures from our trip to the Forbidden City, which was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government. (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

We all decided to take advantage of the self-guided tour, which meant we'd have a headset that automatically stopped and started, providing historical information, based on our location within the palace walls. That turned out not to work so well as Ada's headset broke in the middle, Raja's started talking about random buildings at random times, and mine was too big to stay on my ear. Stefano fared better than the rest of us, but we all ended up just aimlessly milling about this huge complex, looking at all of the architecture and bright colors. With plenty of photo opportunities, there are lots of pictures to share from our day around the Forbidden City.

Here we are in Tiananmen Square: