For our second to last full day in Beijing, we did quite a few amazing things. First, bright and early in the morning, we visited the Forbidden City, which was astounding. Our tour guide shared a number of super interesting facts about the Forbidden City with us, such as the fact that the Forbidden City had 9,999.5 rooms upon construction, but its room-count has dropped to the 8,000’s range since then, as a result of fires and other destructive causes. While we had to do a lot of walking in the heat, I felt that the trek around the Forbidden City was worth every step I took – each building was so intricately designed, and I could definitely see why the Forbidden City was closed off to everybody but the royal family and its servants. That said, it was also somewhat of an odd feeling, walking around the Forbidden City as a tourist in the 21st century; I wondered about the generations of royalty that had ruled from the very grounds I was standing upon, insulated from the outside world, and what they would have to say about everybody, from Chinese commoners to foreign college students, treading the very paths they had worked so hard to keep exclusively their own.
After our visit to the Forbidden City, we got to see a snippet of a Chinese opera about the Monkey King! This was so much fun, as after the brief (but wonderful) performance, we got to learn a few tricks ourselves, including some of the Monkey King’s poses, which proved to actually be very difficult. We also got to have our faces painted like the characters from the opera, which was a ton of fun! I got my face painted like that of the Monkey King, and had a blast watching others get their faces painted like other characters, such as a turtle, as well. All in all, it was a second-to-last day in Beijing very well spent!
