Friday, April 29, 2011

China Part 1


On April 3, 2011 I headed off to China ..the filght from LA is a long one but the destination makes it all worth while.  We stayed at Beijing’s City Wall Marriott.  

The city wall of Beijing was a fortification built around 1435. It was 23.5 km long. The thickness at ground level was 20m and the top 12m. The wall was 15m high, and it had nine gates. This wall stood for nearly 530 years, but in 1965 it was removed to give way to 2nd Ring Road and the loop line subway of Beijing. Only in the southeast, just south of Beijing Railway Station, stands one part of the wall.  








The climate is very similar to what we have in the US however I did find some flowers in bloom around the hotel.


After that plane ride your first thought might be to crawl into bed and not move for 24 hours but we didn’t have that luxury..which maybe was a good thing.  Instead we hit the ground running, loaded onto the bus and headed to Tiannamen Square and the Forbidden Palace.

Our first glimpses of the people and the way of life in Beijing..


A light pole in Tiananmen Square: (I just liked it so snap snap)

A guard in Tiananmen Square:

Marching at the Forbidden Palace:


Inside the Forbidden city:



Some of the ornate “adornment” on the buildings in the Forbidden City.

It was very hazy and overcast..so I am pretty impressed with the quality of my pictures:




When I looked at this picture allI could remember how exhausted I was by the time we reached this point!  The Forbidden City is huge and we did a lot of walking:



Many of their valuable pieces are housed in the various buildings throughout the Forbidden City.   We couldn’t go in so squeezed around people to get a picture of interesting stuff like this throne for the emperor I am sure:



We also visited the Summer Palace:

The Summer Palace (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Yíhé Yuán; literally "Gardens of Nurtured Harmony") is a palace in Beijing, China. The Summer Palace is mainly dominated by Longevity Hill (60 meters high) and the Kunming Lake. It covers an expanse of 2.9 square kilometers, three quarters of which is water. The central Kunming Lake covering 2.2 square kilometers was entirely man made and the excavated soil was used to build Longevity Hill. In the Summer Palace, one finds a variety of palaces, gardens, and other classical-style architectural structures.




What really fascinated me about China though was the people here are some pictures!



No matter where we went it seemed someone was always trying to sell us something, note the postcards the lady in the picture above has ready to sell to us. I really did like this gentlemen selling flutes!  He was very good, loved what he was selling and was really a charmer!







Another fine musician. China is full of sensations; sights, sounds and smells!






Below:

Bronze Qilin statue inside the Summer Palace

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