Day 122 - 01 December 2009: Forbidden City & tears and fame at Beijing train station

My room in the hostel is above a shop which has a loud speaker outside which plays a constant 24 hour looping announcement which sounds to me like ‘No Pringle, No Dance, No Pringle?, Attack Attack Attack!!’ It prevents me from having a comfortable lie in this morning. I also find my room being used as a storage locker for everybody’s luggage, as we are checking out today, but are not leaving until the evening.

Forbidden City Highlights

 

the Imperial Garden

a single act of carelessness leads to an eternal loss of beauty

Palace of Prolonged Happiness....destroyed by fire in 1849

Laurie and I go to the Forbidden City today. While I do fill up my camera memory card taking photos of the elegant architecture, I don’t find it terribly interesting. It’s called the Forbidden City because, in the age of the dynasties, nobody except the court of the Emperors was allowed into it, and this means that the buildings were used purely for ceremonial purposes. This seems a waste of a beautiful ‘city’ and it means that the history they have to tell is limited, except of the extravagant elitism of monarchy. The buildings are all very similar, with very similar histories, i.e. ‘built in 1420 by the Ming Dynasty, and then rebuilt in 16xx by the Qing Dynasty, and was used for such and such ceremony’. The most interesting bit of history I learn is at the Kun Ning Gong (Hall of Earthly Tranquillity), which has a less than tranquil past. It was home to the Empresses during the Ming Dynasty, and one of them hung herself in this hall in 1644.

Tonight we say farewell to Meg and Dave. They are moving onto Hong Kong, Oz and New Zealand before going home. They come to the train station to see us off. There is more hanging around as we wait for the gates to open, so I get some cheap Chinese whiskey to help me sleep on the train. This also helps to induce another rendition of The Ballad of MegaDave in the station waiting hall. This now counts as the biggest gig of my life, as hundreds of Chinese observe with a mixture of amusement and bafflement. There are a few tears as we say terrah to M&D and, as I get on the train, I am getting few stares from our fellow passengers. Have I now earned fame? I offer to sign autographs, but the starers just keep on staring.

a star is born.....???

Terrah Megger...