Forbidden City

Beijing's 'Ancient Palace' (GuGong) is among the world's largest and most elaborate, and is about six hundred years old. The complex also houses the Palace Museum. Getting in is 60 rmb, which does not include admission to other museums in the vicinity. (The audio guides are 10 rmb for Chinese and 40 for other languages.) It also does not include admission, after you get inside, to the hall of jewellery and the hall of clocks and watches. Anyways, it is undoubtedly a magnificent place to visit both for the buildings and for the contents. I spent most of a day there and did not get through all the areas that are open to the public.

Meridian Gate, with its five stone bridges:



The largest and grandest buildings are in the Outer Court. I found the smaller palaces and living areas with their gardens in the inner court much more interesting. My audio guide was supposed to sense where I was and could tell stories associated with a location wherever I wandered. It worked more than half the time.




Right most dragon of the mosaic Nine Dragon Screen, one of three or four in China. A dragon is the Emperor's symbol.



The Hall of Clocks and Watches was among the most interesting of the museum exhibits. I love old machines and many of them had moving birds, flowers, and other figures. (They were not running when displayed, but there was a movie that showed some of the collection in motion.) The pottery was also really fascinating - I love how something so beautiful and delicate has survived for centuries. Some of the neatest stuff in that exhibit was the shards and pieces from kilns in different parts of China showing the different styles.

The tiled roofs and painted eaves are the most gorgeous features of the buildings. The number of gargoyles indicate the building's rank in the complex; the highest number is 11. The gargoyles also keep the tiles in place.



The Crystal Palace, unfinished when the Qing Dynasty fell. According to my audio guide it was supposed to have a moat and double glass walls filled with fish.

Tian An Men Square

Took a few days out of my trip home to visit the nation’s capital. I am staying at the Far East hostel, because it is close to Tian An Men and is supposedly the best in the city. It is five times the cost of Mix in my hometown. North Americans are fascinated with history, since we don't have much, and my Dujiangyan visit was the only real history I'd seen in China so far though I've been living here for six months. Beijing oozes history, both ancient and modern though it is hard to know how much of it is really old. Tian An Men was completely rebuilt in the 70s even though the original was over 500 years old.

Mao overlooking Tian An Men Square:



Mao's Tomb, like much of the Forbidden City, is under renos and is closed til later this fall. Outside are statues celebrating the revolution.



The most interesting thing about Tian An Men Square are the people. In the morning, it is full of mostly Chinese tour groups and people taking pictures with the monuments. They are wearing identical hats or scarves and are following flags. In the evening, people come with their families to relax. There are dozens of kites flying and the monuments are illuminated. There are lots of foreigners here too, almost as many as in Hong Kong. I saw a family with the father wearing the skullcap, the mother wearing hijab, and the little daughter wearing lighted devil horns.

Tianfu Square

The physical and administrative centre of the city had a new town square and subway station unveiled around Spring Festival this year. It's quite gorgeous and along the north edge of the square, under the watch of a statue of Ma*, there are huge foutains that feature a light and music show in the evening. I finally got down there on a Sunday night and was very impressed.



The best thing is that the fountains are wide and wild enough to get the spectators pretty wet and the kids get very excited:



Subway station:

端午节 (duānwŭjié) Dragon Boat Festival

For the past couple of weeks I have seen big displays of zongzi in the supermarkets. Zongzi are the little packages of sticky rice with filling wrapped in leaves and steamed. You usually buy them ready made and heat them up. (I like the ones I used to buy in Edmonton better than the ones here.) I thought this was a little odd since it does not seem like summer food. Last Tuesday, when I got up and went to the bus stop at about nine thirty, the river bank was crowded with people and policemen trying to keep them off the street. I crossed the street to see what they were watching but it was not very clear. It turned out to be a dragon boat race – this is Dragon Boat Festival day. Zongzi are a traditional food on this holiday.

There were too many people to see through on the riverbank, so I watched from the top of my apartment building instead:

Beat the Heat

People here have some neat ways to keep cool or keep out of the sun. I don’t see that many sunglasses, but these welding-helmet-like contraptions are very common, especially for women:


Parasols with highly reflective surfaces are carried by hand or are attached to bikes and scooters. Men, on the other hand, like to roll up their shirts.


I'm also seeing a lot of these little white capes that go over your shoulders and attach to your wrists to keep the sun off of your arms and shoulders. This seems to be particularly important while riding a bike.

都江堰 Dūjiāngyàn

Dujiangyan is an irrigation system that is over two thousand years old and is still working. You can read its history here.

Having a geeky interest in early engineering and applied science, I’ve been wanting to visit ever since hearing about it. It is about 32 kuai round trip to Dujiangyan from the Chadianzi bus station. This is my first trip outside the city since arriving.

South bridge just outside the entrance, over the Bao Ping Kou stream which is about 20 m wide. The gate is almost very elaborately, almost kitschily, decorated. I loved the little street past it though, which was flanked with noodle shops and tea vendors and almost completely shaded with a canopy of low trees. We had a beef version of hui guo rou (the quintessential Sichuan dish) and some really good lamb skewers at a Muslim restaurant there.

The gardens at the entrance gorgeous, with fish ponds. The fish are huge – here they are fighting for food. On the opposite side of the pond there was one plant hanging into the water and the fish were tugging at the leaves and eating them. We saw turtles swimming in the water too, making it look like fun to be turtles.

Li Bing, the builder, is so revered that there is a temple to him. Inside the temple is a hall with dozens of photos of distinguished visitors – M*o, Zhou Enl*i, former president Carter, the King of Sweden, Deng Xi*oping. The photos date back to the fifties and made us feel pretty important.

We crossed the rope bridge leading to the weir which is the main part of the irrigation system. Crossing the rope bridge was a bit scary since the Min river is large and fast, nothing like the lazy streams that wind through Chengdu. Other people also found it fun to rock the bridge as they crossed.


We climbed past several temples on our way up to the Qinyan tower.


From the tower we had a great view of the whole irrigation system and the mountain side:



We took the Songmao Ancient Road to the next exit of the park. There were good views of Dujiangjan from here as well. All along the path were those speakers that look like rocks with Chinese stringed instrument music playing.


The last few steps to the exit:

Intangible Cultural Heritage Festival

The name sounded like Chinglish to me but 'intangible cultural heritage' is an actual term for the 'living' heritage of a place such as songs, methods of art, dances, methods of making alcohol and cooking, and other customs. There is a two week festival dedicated to this in the city right now and I went to check it out Thursday at a park in the northwest. Most provinces and some of the cities and districts in Sichuan had displays and it really made me appreciate how much diversity there is between the ethnic groups in China. Some photos from the exhibits are below.

Tibetan art:


Tibetan pottery:


Lamp made of bowls, spoons, chopstick holders, and other ceramic:


The 'lamp shadow' puppets, like in To Live: