Exploration of the Forbidden City

After 13 hours of flying across the planet, I tried to recover by sleeping somewhat early (12am) before class at 8:30. My roommate Tab and I woke up at about 8:00am and got ready for class. We were told it was on the 4th floor of the architecture building. When we got out of the door at the dorm we realized we had no idea where to go and ended up being lost for about 30 minutes before finding the class. Luckily Tab and I are decent photographers so we didn't miss much from being late as the class was going over the basics of using manual mode on a camera. Sketching however, is my weakness, so I really had to catch up before the end of the trip. Following our class we traveled to the Forbidden city and it was the hottest weather I had ever experienced in my life. It was only 103 degrees but it was also 800% humidity. We were given a time to meet at the other side so off everyone went. The immediate reaction I had was to the vastness of the site. There were huge courtyards paved with bricks, some new and some very old, surrounded by huge walls and buildings. There were so many of these courtyards that went further and further back. The main crowds were just walking through the center so I decided to travel along the edges and get pictures that showed the vast perspective I was seeing. In pictures it's really quite boring, but it was amazing seeing it myself. For the first time I opened my sketch book and attempted to sketch a lamp and a couple other things. What I like about these sketches however is that it allows me to see my progression throughout the trip. Despite the intense heat the Forbidden city was one of my favorite parts of the trip.