Emperor posing his poetry
Giant version of the golden stamp used by the emperor 
Map and locations of various place in the forbidden city
The main entrance of the forbidden city
Today we headed off to Hue on the guided tour arranged by SP as part of the culture learning experience. A white van was waiting to pick us up at the entrance of the school. It was a three and a half hour journey to Hue. Most of us dozed off in the van as we had to wake up early in the morning. Our first stop was the Forbidden City. It was burning hot and some of us stopped by at the street shops to get some hats to protect ourselves from the burning heat.
Model of the whole forbidden city
The Forbidden City is where the King and royal family's residence is located. It was strictly off limits to the local people. The layouts of the buildings were most densely concentrated in the Forbidden City, centered around Can Nguyen Palace, built on a hillock. Although slight displacement was observed, in general, the location of citadel rings and architectural structures has remained unchanged over different periods. Over 90% of the city was destroyed by the French and Vietnam war from fires and bombings. We observed some reconstruction work taking place, in hopes to revitalize the city.
The design of the Forbidden City has a great influence with the Chinese concept. The locations of each building were situated at certain area due to the feng shui reasons. The emperors at that time strictly believed in the feng shui and made sure everything is right in their residence. We could only cover a certain area as the place was really really HUGE!! We were really exhausted after covering a minor part of the palace. Sometimes I wonder how the emperor travelled around his palace. But whatever it is, he sure had the best and finest things served there throughout his life time. Lucky Man!!
Later we headed for lunch, and straight after that was the visit to the emperor’s summer palace. He stayed there most of his life. His tomb was constructed under his orders at the age of 14 and made sure everything was set to his demands. He even wrote his history on this huge marble consisting of 5000 chinese characters. The purpose of it was to let the future generation know about him and judge his acts. As this emperor was really short, he made the statues of his soldiers and ministers to his height. This tour enabled us to know more about the origins of Vietnamese culture and the history of the country.