Beijing Dec 11 - Dec 14, 2011

It was my first time visit Beijing, China.

We arrived there on Dec 11 and decided to use the evening to visit the food street first~ Gui Jie (簋街). I heard it’s used to have people selling and yelling their food along the street. Now it’s under control by all the departments, hence everything is inside restaurants now. And it turned from a people’s cultural spot to a tourists’ cultural spot. Well, I’m sure it’s cleaner, just no longer clean.

Dec 12th:

The temple of Heaven. (天坛公园)

We entered from the East gate, and went through an ancient corridor, with the Beijing palace style. Here, along the side, people are gathering by 4 or more or less, playing cards mostly. Some are just sitting there, resting. Most are mid-aged people or old people. This is something I seldom see in Shanghai. So many people leisurely gathers together, so crowded to play cards. Every space between two pillars, there’s a game. And people will stand aside, watching.

 

 

Going forward, we finally reached the temple of heaven…

It’s really magnificent with vast area and I like the bright color it has on its layers of eaves. Purple plus golden.

Going south, there are a couple more temple which I hardly remember the name now. For this one, i like the golden spreading over the purple roof. And inside, the ceiling’s design is so sophisticatedly layered.

On our way back, in the light sunset along the ancient wall, we saw two old men sitting there, probably chatting. It’s a scene that feels like from the movie, seperated from the modern world, people still living under the wall, as the people from hundreds or even thousands years ago.

Dec 13rd:

Finally, I was at Ti&an&*&An&*&Men&&  Square.

Entering forbidden city, we passed the gate where it’s said to be the place to execute death sentences.

Then it follows more palaces. The first three palaces are mostly used to meet the officers in the government then.The last three palaces, are the resting place of emperors and queens. And around the last three palaces, it’s harem I would say.

The following two pics mostly show how the big layout is for such a huge land of palaces, the first one shows the main line in the middle, with all the big palaces. Then the second pic shows the surrounding palaces how they build toward two sides.

And with regards to the architecture itself, here’re some fun things.

This is the water outlet built in the shape of animal or cloud

This is a golden pot that holds water for fire fighting. In winter, fire will be lit under it to keep the water from frozen. Sad thing is, during wars, the gold on it has been scratched a lot.

And here, you can see, how dragon was empowered than. You see that on the corner of window pane, door knob, and stone slate between stairs. The amazing things, most of them are having different gestures of expressions. Every single one was made by the architect. It’s just incredibly amazing, somehow, crazy, too.

  

And emperor’s seat looks like this, and his servants normally stand along two sides, extending all the way into the yards. It doesn’t really seem to feel more comfortable than the iron throne though.

Continuing, we toured through the garden with man-made hills and all the ancient trees, we exited from the north gate.

Then we turn west and go to the Bei Hai Park. There’s a jade tower built by an emperor there.

It has a huge lake there, which is great for boating in summer, but in winter, I guess there’s not much left to do.

Going uphill, in order to see the tower. Along the way, we passed a temple, there’re maybe blessing plates hanging on the trees or the bronze there. It’s a very lovely view, pretty and full of wishes.

Dec 14

The last day, we decided to pay a visit to Summer Palace. It got its name for a reason. Since CiXi likes Jiang Nan, the southern Chinese style, so she copied things over to Beijing. And only in summer when the weather fits, you can wander around the garden and casually boating on the lake. In winter, we suffered the harsh wind and empty huge park this time. :p

So let’s see how empty it is, even tourists are few. No one bothers to set up the site to do the business even.

The lake is almost frozen.

Empty chair with empty table…

But other than these, the scenery is really cute.  It has a 17-hole bridge.

There’re more towers, temples around…

And again.. see how winter shows its beauty here:

Finally, our signature