The Forbidden City & The Imperial Garden
Abraham introduced me to the movie The Last Emperor on the train ride from Beijing to Guilin, and how I wish I’d seen it before visiting this grand monstrosity because I loved the movie so much, I know I would have been even more geeked than I already was about this visit. We took the chance on renting the GPS audio guide, and while the the first headset was a fail, we quickly replaced it and the device worked (for the most part) for the rest of the day. Just like Beijing itself, it is so wild and difficult to try to wrap my head around the fact that people lived and ruled here for many years. I would return in a heartbeat.
Tidbits:
Entrance Fee: 60RMB per person
Audio Guilde : 40RMB per unit
And a big plus: we were both extra super excited when found COLD COLD COLD water from the vending machines right outside the palace, near the ticket kiosk. Since we had been served hot water since we arrived in China, finding a vending machine with cold water was a big hit with us. I wanted to hug the machine.