Empress for a Day

Saturday Anna and I were going to go to GuGong, the Imperial Palace.  This palace was the Emperor's palace until the capitol of China was moved to Beijing, where the Forbidden City is now.  But Saturday, I woke up and it was raining... so I worked on some stuff... and it was still raining... so I took a nap... and it was still raining.  And we're not even getting a hurricane.  Needless to say, we didn't go to GuGong on Saturday.  We made chili.  It was a warm, delicious, taste of home on Christmas Eve.

So we decided to go Sunday.... when there was sun... all day.

We hopped in a taxi (AHHHH!!!). Off to GuGong... or rather Starbucks.

What's great about Starbucks is that there are a bunch of them... 5 minutes apart.  Where we were going has two of them.  But they're on the walking street.  Which is great... because we don't have to worry about getting run over by a bus or cement truck.  But it's also bad... because taxi drivers don't know where they are.  Thankfully, we had the nicest guy as our cab driver.  He didn't give up... he laid on his horn every time we came along side another taxi.  After some yelling back and forth above the honking, they'd smile and laugh and we'd drive on to find someone else who might know where we wanted to go.

Part of the walking street

Somehow, he finally figured out where to take us... kind of. But he dropped us off at the wrong of the walking street. So we walked the other way. As we neared the end, Anna realized we had gone the wrong way to get to Starbucks... so we turned around... and passed it on the way to where we started. We had missed it gawking at the bakery next door. But the warm late was extra special at that point, as we were a little chilly.

We kept walking... passed where we got off the taxi clear to the other end of the walking street... where we passed the Starbucks we originally thought of.  A little ways beyond that we passed the new Gap with a 2 story Transformer outside.  Got to the end of the street... and we were at the wrong side.

About face.
Stop and ask a couple people... The cop was probably the nicest one.  Straight, then left, then right.
Through the streets behind all the nice apartment stores... which was a taste of Old China, the road less traveled in this area, though not quite an alley way... then back onto the walking street...

Past where we got off the taxi in the first place... past Starbucks and the bakery... and straight on till morning... after a long walk through Happy Family (a mall that seems like it's the size of the Mall of America).

Finally!!

And there it was.  The beautiful red walls with tile roofs and dragons on the corners... our Imperial Palace.  After our long and treacherous journey, it was wonderful to walk through the 500 year old archways and see where the emperor and his wives lived.  The library, the throne rooms, the concubines' rooms, the gardens, the dining area, the theater, the rooms entertaining, courtyards... and it went on and on.




I, being the tourist that I am, decided to pay the few bucks to dress up.  I became the Empress.  In a dress that is too short for me (big surprise there!)

The Chinese woman and me in our native clothing

Pictures on the cannon, in the chair, next to the sweet Chinese woman who was also dressed up (by the way... Chinese people love taking pictures with or of the foreigners... whether obviously or rather sneakily... so she was honored to take a picture with me.

One of the "lesser" throne rooms

The architecture was amazing. The colors, the paintings, the statues, the gardens, the roofs, the tiered buildings... just gorgeous. Like it was straight out of Mulan or the Chinese section of Epcot. Yes, I am a little of an ignorant American. But my horizons were broadened. I experienced the life of an empress. Walked where she walked, sat where she sat, looked where she looked. Empress for a Day.

Off with his head!