Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

The Forbidden City
The complex was completed in 1420. 24 emperors ruled for almost 500 years. The Forbidden City was the center of the universe for the Chinese. The imperial court and dignitaries lived there until the 1920s, and was finally opened to the public in 1949. This place is huge! The "city" has more than 8,700 rooms, was built by tens of thousands of people, and took 12 years and 32 million bricks to complete. During the Qing dynasty, four pigs were sacrificed each day (39 on holy days) to the gods in the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. Crazy! The sad thing is that there are not a lot of artifacts and decorations left inside each of the buildings. When the Japanese invaded, the KMT took over 4,000 crates of treasure to Taiwan. .

The Imperial Gardens were our favorite. One thing I thought was interesting was that the Qing dynasty performed sacrifices on the seventh day on the seventh lunar month (which is the same as China's Valentine's Day) to a pair of stars that represented lovers.