One of the Beijing highlights is the ancient palace complex famously known as the Forbidden City. I looked up tours online and decided to go with this one which included the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace as well. The tour agency reached out beforehand to get our contact details and then let us know we would be picked up from our hostel at 6.50 AM. After picking up other groups, we headed to the entrance of the Forbidden City arriving at 7.30 AM. At the entrance, there is a security checkpoint and they scan your passport so make sure you take it with you. After getting through security, everyone then gathers by the entrance, waiting until the doors open at 8 AM. Once the doors open, our guide begins to take us through the complex.
We began the tour in the area with the administrative buildings. The guide gives us info on what the purpose would have been of the buildings. He also gave us a history of the site and Imperial China. There are several artifacts throughout the maze-like site and an amazing experience to stand at a place with thousands of years of history. The tour finishes at the other end of the complex in the residential area where the concubines would have been. This is opposite Jingshan Park and we walked along the main road towards our tour bus.
The next stop is the Temple of Heaven, but we first make a stop at a center of Chinese Medicine. Everyone gets a free foot massage while they talk about pressure points and acupuncture. They give some more info on Chinese Medicine and how it’s used in conjunction with western medicine. You also have a chance for a Chinese Medicine doctor to take a look at you if you have any health concerns. It’s also an opportunity to buy any Chinese Medicine products. The visit takes about 45 minutes and we then head to the Temple of Heaven. The guide takes us around the site and the main building is at the center. The guide gives some history on what the site was used for. The site also has some gardens which would have been nice to walk around but 30 minutes into the tour it started raining for us, so we headed back to the tour bus. We then headed to a restaurant for lunch. It was a buffet-style meal and we were finished with lunch at around 12.30 PM.
Next, we head to a pearl store where a sales rep talks about how to identify real pearls. We’re here for about 30 minutes before continuing onto the Summer Palace which is about a 40-minute drive away. Once at the site, the guide gets our tickets and gives us some info on the site. We’re then given about 40 minutes to walk around the site. There’s an option to get another ticket for a boat ride but we chose to walk by the lakeside to the other end of the site. We had quite cloudy weather but we got great views of the garden. We were done at around 2.30 PM and were dropped off in the Qianmen area.
