Continuing my action packed day (great wall>ming temples>) I headed next for what I thought would be a wee gander around the notorious Tiananmen Sq and forbidden city:
some facts for you:

Tiananmen Square (simplified Chinese: 天安门广场; traditional Chinese: 天安門廣場; pinyin: Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng) is the large plaza near the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen (literally, Gate of Heavenly Peace) which sits to its north, separating it from the Forbidden City. It has great cultural significance as a symbol because it was the site of several key events in Chinese history. Outside of China, the square is widely known for the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
The square covers 40.5 hectares (100 acres), which makes it the largest open-urban square in the world.

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the Dongcheng District, in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government.
Built from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 square metres.

It took me 4HOURS to walk around the palace museam and I still didnt see hardly any of it!! Incredible and you can see from the pictures just how enormous, beautiful and historic it is.

On a side note, in Tiananmen Sq I got stopped loads by random Chinese who wanted their photo taken with me, I know it was the novelty of having a picture taken with a giant freaky helga gewilo.. but I felt a wee bit like a celebrity anyway lol

xx