We had an early start to watch the Raising of the Flag Ceremony at sunrise in Tiananmen Square. We were a little disappointed as it was rather brief and consisted of soldiers marching around for about 2 minutes followed by the raising of the flag to the National Anthem, and that was it! It certainly was not worth getting up at 5.30 am - especially to be pushed out of the way by 'cute' little old Chinese ladies (tourists) trying to get a better look!
The advantage of getting up early, though, was that we were nice and early for our visit to The Imperial Palace, also known as The Forbidden City. No trip to Beijing would be complete without it. It was called The Forbidden City because it was off-limits to the common people, and was where the last 400 years of Emperors lived isolated from the outside world surrounded by their Eunichs and Concubines.
The architecture of the buildings was amazing most being renovated during the Ming dynasty (mostly due to fire). Our tour was fun and we rented out an Audio Guide and had the handsome voice of Roger Moore accompanying us as we explored the Palace. The Forbidden City is huge and so we took a break and I managed to slip in a quick nap jammed in amongst the other tourists on a courtyard bench (double click for the pic in our album). * Mush
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