Beijing

When I was back to Beijing, I felt my every pore is free from worry. A lot of my friends not from China but used to visit China told me that they like Shanghai better than Beijing. I always smell when I hear about that. In my heart, Beijing is a place nowhere could replace.

Some of the good places in Beijing:

Another Imperial Garden - Baihai (North Sea)

The Temple of Heaven

Forbidden City - The Imperial Palace

The Corner Building of the Forbidden City

Moat of the Forbidden City

Beijing's Road & Alley

(1) ChangAn Street - the main street in Beijing

(2) May 4th Street - the most beautiful street in Beijing

Beijing's Alley called HuTong

Old House in HuTong

ZhongNanHai (MidSouth Sea) - the White House of China

Beijing - Summer Palace

YiHe Yuan or Summer Palace is a place I love best because there are so many good memories related to it. As the name, Summer Palace is the summer palace of GuangXu, the Emperor and CiXi, the Queen Dowager and real ruler of 19th century China. There are a lot of legendary stories about CiXi, the old woman, how tough, powerful and cruel she was.

Summer Palace was first built in the 12th century as an imperial palace. Renovation and extension in the following several hundred years till the end of the 19th century led it into the scale now, and was officially named Summer Palace. Occupying an area of 304 hectares, the Summer Palace features hilly and water scenery. The Kunming Lake makes up four-fifths of this royal park. The Long Corridor running east-west along the lake as well as Fo Xiang Ge (the Pavilion of the Fragrance of Buddha), the Sea of Wisdom, and the Hall of Dispelling the Clouds and Suzhou Street standing south to north on the Longevity Hill are the major scenic spots.

Kunming Lake and WanShou Hill (the building is the Pavilion of the Fragrance of Buddha)

Paiyun Dian or Hall of Dispelling Clouds, is the place where CiXi celebrated her birthday, and the gateway to the Pavilion of the Fragrance of Buddha. The container stored water for fire prevention.

Pailou or archway, normally for celebration purpose in front of the Hall of Dispelling Clouds

View of the Pavilion of the Fragrance of Buddha from the courtyard of the Hall of Dispelling Clouds

The yard of the Pavilion of the Fragrance of Buddha

The stareway to the Pavilion of the Fragrance of Buddha

The Long Corridor, covered walkway along Lake Kunming at the Summer Palace, runs for almost 2400 feet to the famous marble boat. I guess when the royal family walked to the boat to take tea, they had a wonderfully decorated walkway to stroll along

The roof of the pavilion in the middle of the long corridor

The decoration on the beam tells stories from ancient novel. This one is from the novel "Journey to the West" (西游记)

Suzhou Street (a copy of Suzhou's shopping street)

The Marble Boat at the western end of the Long Corridor is a noted structure on water. Built in 1755, the boat, having a length of 36 meters, was made completely out of marble. There is a mirror on each of its two decks to reflect lake water. Sitting before the mirror gives a feeling of sitting on the ripples of water.

The Royal Dockyard

The Big Stage

Emperor Qilong asked to built a lot of places the same as Suzhou and Hangzhou after a tour of inspection to the south of Yangzi River. Xi Di (West Dike) copied Su Di (Su Dike) in Hangzhou.

When I was in the high school, which was not far from the Summer Palace, I came to Xi Di on every autumn festival with my friends to see the full moon.

Xi Di has six different kinds of Bridges

YuDai Bridge (Jade Belt) HuaZhongYou, or Strolling Through a Picture Scroll is another place we always gathered when we were in High School. I had a picture with two best friends on the rock.

Bridge with Seventeen Arches

What Do We Do in Chinese New Year

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR
过年好

Wear new red cloths, the hanging decoration is the Chinese charater of "Spring"(春), we called Chinese New Year "Spring Festival". The small charater is "Luck"(福)

Decorate the window with red paper cutting of the animal of the year - this year is the year of the pig.

Light firecrakers - Year is called "Nian(年)" in Chinese. It was said "Nian" was a bad monster, people need to light the firecrakers to scare it away in order to have a happy and lucky new year.

Watch the Chinese New Year TV show hosted by CCTV together with family, although people said it is boring, but it is like a tradition back from 20 years before when most of the Chinese families had TV set first time ... ...

Make dumplines while watch TV together and eat dumplines in the morning of the New Year's day. We say eat "YuanBao', because the shape of the dumpline is like "Yuan Bao", the ancient Chinese money.

Paste New Year Scrolls (Spring Festival couplets) on gateposts or door panels

Paste New Year picture, this is FU (luck), the one sitting in the middle; LU (high post emoulument), the right one; SHOU(long live), the right one with big forehead; and XI (celebration), the kids.

Go to the Festival Temple Fair:

Buy flowers and pinwheels

Watch old style parade

Special stuff in the temple fair: sugarcoated haws on a stick, candy animal and cucurbit with the Chinese charactor of "Luck" (福)

Back Again - one day before Chinese New Year Eve

Sorry haven't updated my blog for a while, just too, too, too busy, and without fun. I worked like a dog, day and night, weekdays and weekends ... ... Still, I am ok with the streess from the engagements, but just start to lose my patience on the duplicate works and frequently changed orders.

Anyways, tomorrow I will fly back to Beijing for the Chinese New Year. How nice to have a 7 days holiday during the busy season. I used to plan to go to Japan but could not confirm if I could take the holiday or need to work until three days before. Now I just want to go back to my parents and have a good rest.

On the way back to my place tonight, there are a lot of people with suitcases on the road. Some coming back, some leaving to their hometowns. Going back home for the dinner in the Chinese New Year Eve is the desire of every Chinese. My parents have called me a lot of times to confirm my flight arriving time, what dishes for the dinner and how to decorate the house.

The roses I got on the St. Valentine's Day ^__^