China Trip - Part Two
OK I think three days is long enough to get as many visitors/comments as I am likely to get, so tonight I will load Part Two of our Great Chinese Experience!
This will cover days Three and Four in Beijing and then our trip by High Speed Train from Beijing to the city of Wuxi.
Chinese Medicine College body map figure
Male Lion at the Summer Palace - male is always on the right as you look at the building and always has a ball under its paw, representing power - the female always has a cub under her paw
The Marble Boat, also known as the Boat of Purity and Ease, at the Summer Palace in Beijing
Summer Palace of the Dragon Lady (Dowager Empress)
Central area of the Summer Palace
Beijing Traffic sign with happy motorcycle cop!
Chinese soldiers changing guard - at the Zoo! Not quite sure why, the only other place we saw soldiers on formal guard was Tiananmen Square...and at both places they were completely unarmed, as were all the police officers we saw...and in 9 days I heard an emergency vehicle siren ONCE - didn't hear one at all during the four days we spend in Beijing, a city of 24 million and 6 million vehicles!
A grumpy panda who had been pushed outside to entertain the visitors - every minute or so he went back to the locked door to the inside enclosure and tried to get in!
View from a pedal rickshaw in the Hulong district
Bell tower in Hulong district
Police vehicles at the zoo
Chinese supermarket - 1 yuan = about NZ 22 cents, so the bottled water to the right was about NZ $1.40 for a dozen bottles! And don't ask me what "scattered food" is - I don't know either - maybe a mistranslation of loose!
Beijing Nan (South) Station
Ticket on the train from Beijing South to Wuxi East. The number in bottom left -505xxx - is my passport number - our passports were checked at Tiananmen Square when the guide bought tickets as well as by the ladies in uniform in the picture below before we were allowed on the platform...we also had to go through airport like security at the railway station entrance, several people had aerosol cans etc removed by the police/security officers there!
The full route of the train we took
Train not quite at full speed - which is 331 km/h
Three views from the window of Chinese countryside
That's all for tonight - will leave it till Wednesday and post the next exciting instalment!
Some more great pictures Keith. How was the air quality in Beijing when you were there? Were your eyes itching at all?
ReplyDeleteNo it seemed OK Lawrence, although we certainly never saw any blue sky the whole time we were there, even though it was hot and sunny at ground level - very strange! I cant remember where it was, but we did see a few bits of blue one day - but that was all - Shanghai etc were just the same as Beijing.
ReplyDeleteAnother batch of inviting photos. Interesting to note that signage is posted in English and prices in dollars. Trip looks marvelous. Marble boat? Thai is an interesting concept.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jonathan - the pricing sown in images is in Yuan, the local currency but yes, every street sign and road sign I saw was in English as well as Chinese - also many business names were in both languages
DeleteAnother bunch of lovely photos, the bell tower looks very impressive!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Yes the characteristic Chinese architecture was awesome Iain - I am expecting our friend Mark to look at building a few in the not too distant future!
DeleteCool pics!
ReplyDeleteCheers Ray - great trip = great photos! More to follow in a couple of days :)
ReplyDeleteStrange for me to see the Summer Palice like that...we saw it with snow on the ground and the lake frozen solid! Did you go up the Bell Tower?
ReplyDeleteNo we did not get the opportunity Mark - we only had about an hour and most people only made it from the gate along the lake to the marble boat then back - one other guy and I paid 5Y each to rush up the steps in the central part of the complex, to get the image labelled as the "central area" above....
ReplyDelete