A CWP Photo

(Click for larger version)

After arriving in Beijing on Monday, I decided to be a tourist for a bit. The weather, well, by Beijing standards, was pretty spectacular.  A colleague had opted to give the Forbidden Palace a whirl, and I was willing to try it too.  While I'd been on two previous occasions, I had a hankering for a good walk outside also.  Being cooped up in a plane, or taxi, or airport, for hours on end is a bit aggravating.

This time I'd packed the Nex-5 camera over an SLR.  It's light, its compact, and it fits the tourist persona well.  It also has a useful panoramic function I hoped would be valuable.  The shot above is taken in panoramic mode.  It's just one part of the Forbidden Palace.  I know the tourist post-card shots show the Forbidden Place typically with a blue sky, but, I suspect that is photoshopped in later. Beijing has some nice days.  Clear blue skies are pretty rare though.  I've never seen one...

As you can see, the site wasn't just popular with us.  A lot of Chinese locals were also visiting.  What I hope is that this view gives some sense of the immense scale of the palace.