Of the 9,999 1/2 rooms in the Forbidden City spread over 72 hectares, not a single room is available for viewing.

Emperor Yongle who directed the construction of the Forbidden City, built the Imperial Palace just 1/2 room short of what is believed to be heaven. In all the images found online, you will only see pictures of the Imperial Palace from outside, never of the interiors.

Your imagination, peppered with a few inputs from the travel guide, is all that you have to understand the privilege and grandeur of the Palace and its inhabitants.

Forbidden City to me was a view without a room – a representation of grandeur left to one’s imagination, complemented by a few images of the imperial throne, mostly taken on a selfie stick.