Despite our Chinese life routine, we are still tourists. Well, at least I am. So under a bright blue sky (so rare in China!) and beautiful sun, we headed to Shenyang’s Imperial Palace, a small-scaled Forbidden Palace like the one in Beijing. Built by a Manchu emperor, it was the official residence of the Qing Dynasty.

We didn’t visit that many “typical” Chinese places during this trip except for the Lama Temple in Beijing, so it was fun to go through the many red doors, spot the gold dragons and step into the classical buildings (mostly empty but for a throne).