Beijing day 2 - Forbidden city

We started out day 2 intending to tour Tiananmen square. Unfortunately it was closed due to a governors conf. There were about 1000 attendees. The police/military was out in force. I was so intimidated that I didn't get any good pictures of them but it was interesting to see all the different uniforms.

The Forbidden city is across the street so we just continued on there (pic. 1). There were 3 sets of large entry gates, all separated by large courtyards. Where there were bridges (pic. 2), ramps and tunnels there were multiple ones with the center reserved for the Emperor. The important people could go on the next outer ones and the less important on the far outer ones. I again was taken with the lion statues (pic. 3).