Beijing: Friday: Forbidden City and vicinity, and Company Party

Due to last-minute schedule changes, company events didn't start until 3pm. I had most of the day to explore Beijing! :)

I got up at 6:30am, took a shower, ate breakfast at the hotel, and was soon on my way with some coworkers to explore the Tian'anmen Square, the Forbidden City, and more. First though, I reveled in the hotel's extensive breakfast spread, eating many American items I hadn't touched in months including raisin bran cereal and banana bread. And it'd been very long since I had fresh pineapple. When I left the hotel, the temperature was cold (-2 C / 28 F) but I dressed warmly and thus being outside the whole day wasn't unpleasant.

I took numerous pictures this day, partially because I was walking around with a coworker who is a photography enthusiast. Had I been walking around alone, I probably would've only taken perhaps half as many.

After spending a while walking through the enormous blank expanse of Tian'anmen Square, we headed into the Forbidden City (a.k.a. the Imperial Palace). Aptly named, it's enormous and could fit a town. Part of the city is composed of large, palatial, expansive halls and plazas, alluding to the vastness of the sky and the world and clearly designed to impress by their sheer scope and magnitude. Another part of the city is composed of similar halls but felt less monumental; these were the emperor's and nobles' residences. Another part of the city has smaller buildings connected by long lanes. Concubines, housekeeping staff, servants, and secondary government officials lived there. I didn't greatly enjoy any of these buildings. Rather, the gardens are the part of the Forbidden Palace I liked the most. They're not actually particularly nice, but what can I say: I like trees and nature.

We also looked through the various museums/exhibits in the Forbidden City. The Treasure Gallery contains crowns, hairpins, tiny wine vessels, ewer flasks, tributes from provinces (mostly high-quality art or jewelry), royal accessories, jade sculptures, and palatial furnishings, all made with fine craftsmanship. We also went to the Clock Museum and an exhibit of jade carvings. The Clock Museum has clocks, all elaborate, made from various regions throughout China, as well as some imported from foreigners and some made by Western-influenced Chinese clockmakers. Of the China-local clocks, I liked the ones from Guangzhou the best.

After the Forbidden City, we walked up and through the neighboring park, Jingshan Park, then walked to another nearby park, Beihai Park (yet another park formerly considered part of the Forbidden City), grabbing lunch on the way (at the first place we saw after we left Jingshan Park).

In mid-afternoon, we returned to the conference center and hotel to do company-related things. In the evening, I attended the elaborate, extravagant company New Year Kick-off Party / gala banquet. When I say extravagant, I mean it: two large projection screens hung from the center of the hall on which were projected images from the party as multiple cameras, including one on a crane, roamed the scene; the front stage was illuminated with multi-colored lasers and spotlights like a concert; an A&V team in the back managed it all.

As for the party, there was an award ceremony, a number of performances (dancing, singing, etc.) by employees, and even an imitate-the-professional-dancer competition (in which dancers were thrown out one-by-one by judges and, near the end, by SMS voting), and more. I, however, found the evening rather boring, and not because I don't speak the language.