All around the grounds near this temple, people were doing tai chi, or line dancing (like the Achy-Breaky Heart), or playing badminton, lots of activity! I caught some of that on video.
Next we were off to the Tian'anmen Square:
there were THOUSANDS of people lined up to see Mao Tse Tung, and they had to wait in line for up to two hours or more just to walk past the glass-encased body. Of course, I passed on that!
Just north of that is the Forbidden City, where the emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasties lived, from the 1400s up to the early 1900s. It was one large area full of impressive buildings like this one:
I think this was the building where the emperor met with heads of state. There was a similar building behind that, which was the emperor's house, and another one behind that which was the "honeymoon" building, where the emperess lived. All along the sides were smaller buildings which housed the emperor's courtesans and concubines, more than 9,000 rooms worth of single-story buildings.
Further north of the Forbidden City is a large hill, with a building on top which provides a view down into the Forbidden City. Here is a shot of that building:
About the only thing you can really see of the Forbidden City is a bunch of rooftops, but you can see that the main buildings run down the center, with smaller ones on each side. We stopped for a traditional tea service at the bottom of the hill, then found a small family-style Chinese restaurant for lunch.
We emerged from the restaurant at around 1pm to a mostly clear sky and bright sun - what a surprise!
From there we went to the Summer Palace. The most impressive structure there is the Buddhist temple at the top of the hill, overlooking the palace:
The palace buildings are unimpressive, except for an extremely long covered walkway, which has paintings on it every few feet. I got video of that walkway, but no photos. It was very crowded at the summer palace, until we walked far enough away from the entrance and main buildings to get past all the people who were on bus tours. There must have been 20 or 30 buses there!
I had decided to go to a Kongfu Show at the end of the day, and the show was scheduled to start at 5:15, and it was about an hour of travel time to get there, so there wasn't time for any more sightseeing. We hopped in a taxi and headed back to the section of the city where the show is held. On the way, we passed pretty close to the Bird's Nest, so I was able to get one half-way decent photo of it from the highway:
We actually got to the theater quicker than expected, so we had a bit of time to go to a nearby market and haggle a bit with some vendors there. It's amazing how quickly they start to drop their prices, when they see you start to walk away! I bought an olympic souvenir from one guy for 15RMB, which is a bit more than $2 US.
This is the place where the Kongfu show is held:
The show was great, but no photos or video recording was allowed (of course).
Now I'm off to Hong Kong!
2 comments:
All of your pictures turned out great!! I especially liked the one of the Bird's Nest. I think that that building will always amaze me! All of the other buildings were so ornate and beautiful. I'm sure it was so cool to see them in person.
I wish I could have seen the kongfo show!
Hi Tom. Your photos are great. And the wall is intriguing. I've always wanted to pay a visit. I hope you have lots of video on the wall. How much restriction is there on traveling into the countryside?
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