The Palace Museum in Beijing announced the western part of the Imperial Palace is opened for first time in 90 years. This has increased the sightseeing area available to visitors from 52 percent to 65 percent. The western section of the Palace Museum has been transformed into different exhibition halls, where nearly twelve hundred pieces of relics will be on display to all tourists.
The western part of the Palace Museum includes Buddhist halls, vintage storerooms, and palaces where several empresses and other concubines lived in. The two renowned Cining and Shoukang Palaces are the most famous places in the newly displayed western part of the Palace Museum. After the ban was lifted, tourists could have a taste of the mystery of the western part and luckily enough to catch a glimpse of royal women’s residences after 600 years.
Tourists from all over the world are greatly looking forward to seeing this new exhibition area because of two famous Cining and Shoukang Palaces. Cining and Shoukang Palaces used to be places where two legend empresses Xiaozhuang (Emperor Shunzhi’s mother) and Niuhulu (Emperor Qianlong’s mother) once lived. Visitors to the Forbidden City nowadays can get to know more about the mothers of emperors and their historical stories.
Shoukang Palace is very large, with prettily graved furnishings inside the palace, including the best relics found during the reign of Emperor Qianlong. Tourists can view luxuriously decorated bedrooms and a private Buddhist worship hall among other treasures of the western section there. Professional workers have restored it entirely to what it looked like during that ancient period.