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Panaroma pictures 02

admin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:29:50 +0000

Part 2 of the panaroma pictures…

Xidan Shopping area.

Inside a park at Xuanwu District, at the left side of picture, there are a group of kids learning how to draw a sketch, accompanied by some of their parent.

Pavilion garden inside the Taoranting park (陶然亭公园).

Bei Hai Park 北海公园

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:24:39 +0000

As part of the canal running from Summer Palace, Beihai Park (namelly “the North Sea”) is the last section of water opened to public, other two more lakes Zhonghai and Nanhai (the “Middle and South Sea”) occupied by the central goverment.

Beihai was first built in 938 A.D., in the Liao Dynasty. In 1267, Kublai Khan took here as the center of his capital and built his palaces very close by, now today they are underneath the Jingshan Hill. In the Ming and Qing Dynasty, Beihai was the inner garden and lake inside the Royal City, till 1925 it was opened as a public park.

Beihai was constructed based on the traditional Chinese mythological fairyland story: one lake and three islets, today only one kept (the one with the white pagoda), another one is the Tuancheng (used to be seperated by water), and the last one was merged with the bridge.

In the very south of the park, that is the Tuancheng City or the “City of Harmony”, where was the 2nd islet. It is 4.6 meters high and extended 276 meters in perimeter. In the center, that is a temple, but 2 trees famous, named as “General in White Robe” and “Marquis of Shade”.

The big Jade Jar by the center of here is also famous, it dates back to 1265.

This is the 1st islet out of the three holy islets, below the white pogoda is a temple named “永安寺” or the “Temple of Eternal Peace”

the Immortal’s Fairy Dew Plate from the Qing Dynasty

A view from the north side of the islet, at the left side of this photo, the stone was collected from Taihu Lake of Yangzhou, in the south of China

That is the temple on top of Jingshan Park

The Nine-Dragon Screen was erected in 1756, it was once the screen wall of a hall. The screen is about 25 meters long, there are nine dragons on each side of the screen.

Five-Dragon Pavillion

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Chinese Ethnic Museum

admin — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:15:49 +0000

The whole museum is divided into North Garden and South Garden with an area of 450,000 square meters. There are 16 national villages in the North Garden including those of Qiang, Oroqen and Hezhe ethnic groups.

There is the biggest domestic casting iron sculpture, artificial tropical banyan forest, water-eroded cave, Panlong Waterfall, rock pictures and supernatural wood of Alishan in the North Garden. There is national museum, Sculpture Square and over 20 national villages in the South Garden. All buildings adopt the proportion of 1:1.

While visiting the national villages, visitors can enjoy the waterfall, floating clouds and bonfire at grassland, they can take a view of the scenic spots of China without going out of Beijing and appreciate and participate in the song and dance, festival celebrations, production and customs of various nationalities. From various sports and performances, visitors can enjoy the distinctive culture and art of Chinese people.

Bus Route: Bus No.55, 386, 407, 740, 804, 819, 849, 921, 941 or 944 to Beichen Road Stop or Qijahuozi Stop

Opening Hours: 8:30 – 17:30
(The South Garden is closed from every December to March of the next year).

Admission Fee: RMB 90 Yuan

Tel: 8610-62063647; 8610-62063646

http://www.emuseum.org.cn/eindex.htm

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Aug. 25, hot and humid day

admin — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:26:59 +0000

A man is drawing shrimp on the floor of the Park, with brush and water.

The Bronze Pavilion on the hill of the Summer Palace.

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Grand View Garden, Da Gruan Yuan

admin — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:02:44 +0000

Located in Xuanwu District southwest of Beijing, the present Grand View Garden is a replica of Daguanyuan the magnificent garden of an imperial family described in the well-known Chinese novel “A Dream of Red Mansions” by a Qing Dynasty writer Cao Xueqin (17l5-l763).

The site used to be a park dotted with willows and pines. In l984, the China Television Film Production Centre decided to use it as the setting to shoot garden scenes for the TV series “A Dream of Red Mansions”. The Xuanwu District Government then suggested that the temporary garden be turned into a permanent scenic spot. Thus the plan to build the Grand View Garden faithful to the writer’s description has come into being.

The project started in June 1984 and is expected to be completed in 1988. The Grand View Garden covers 110,000 square metres and includes more than 40 scenic spots illustrating the main plots in the garden. The stonework covers an area of more than 8,000 square metres and the lakes and canals 24,000 sq.m. The construction work is divided into three stages, of which the first stage in the southern part of the garden cost about 4 million yuan (about l.4 million US dollars) and was opened to the public in early 1985 .

It includes a front gate, four courtyards, Qinfang Bridge, Dicui Pavilion, winding paths and other scenic sites. Every effort has been made to be accurate in reproduction of Daguanyuan. Horticulturists, architects, archaeologists and experts on the history of the famous novel were asked to pay much attention to the layout of the whole garden, the location of trees, the arrangement of the rockery, and the decoration of the main characters’ homes.

Yihongyuan (Happy Red Court), located west of Qinfang Bridge, used to be the residence of Jia Baoyu, hero of the novel.

Xiaoxiangguan (Bamboo Lodge), a small and simple courtyard decorated in light-green, with slim bamboos grown in the courtyard, housed the weak and unlucky Lin Daiyu, heroine of the novel.

Jia Baoyu’s sister-in-law, widow Li Wan lived in an eastern courtyard dalled Daoxiangcun (Paddy-Sweet Cottage).

Two stone lions, carved by the veteran artisans from Quyang County in Hebei Province, stand as guards at the front and the gate is flanked by sloping walls. Inside the garden more than 2,000 flowers and trees have been planted, 500 square metres of lawn laid out and hundreds of potted plants arranged.

The famous Taihu Lake stones have been used here to pile the rockery in different artistic postures.

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Beihai Park

admin — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:51:31 +0000

Beside the Forbidden City and Jingshan Park, in the center of Beijing City is an imperial garden called Beihai Park. Initially built in the 10th century, it has a history of over a thousand years, including five dynasties, Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasty (916–1911).

The Park has an area of more than 700,000 square meters, with a water area that covers more than half of the entire Park. At the center of this Park is an island called Qionghua Island (Qiong Island for short). The perimeter of the Island is 1,900 meters and its highest point is 32 meters. In the north area of the park is a big pool called Taiye Pool connecting the other two pools with each other. As the other two pools are called Middle Sea and South Sea respectively, this Pool has another name of Beihai (North Sea).

There are many noticeable and important places in this Park that we suggest you to visit.

The first place is Bai Ta (White Dagoba). As you may find it in almost all the pictures that introduce Beihai Park, it could be called the symbol of Beihai Park. The body of the Dagoba is made of white stones which appear very pure and noticeable. It was built at the highest point on Qiong Island. The Dagoba has a height of 40 meters. Sun, moon and flame engravings decorate the surface of the tower. Destroyed in 1679 by an earthquake, it was rebuilt the following year. Again, in 1976 the top of the tower received damage by the effect of an earthquake which occurred at Tangshan City, near Beijing City. Hidden inside the tower are Scriptures, Buddhist monk’s mantle and alms bowl, and Sheli (the bones of monks with good moral thought and behaviors left after they are burned).

On the north bank of Beihai lies a famous scene, Five-Dragon Pavilion. As five pavilions are connected with each other by bridges, floating on the surface of the water like five dragons playing on the water, so Five-Dragon Pavilion got its name. It was built in the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644) and was repaired in the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911). It was an entertainment place for the emperors and their wives to go fishing or watch the moon.

Just to the north of Five-Dragon pavilion is Nine-Dragon Wall, one of three famous walls of its kind in China. Built in 1756 during the Qing Dynasty, the Nine-Dragon Wall was made of seven-color glaze bricks. Nine complete dragons playing in the clouds are decorated on both sides of the wall.

Also at the north bank of Beihai is Jingxin Room (Quieting Heart Room) is a garden in the garden. It covers an area of more than 4,000 square meters. Built in 1757, it was rebuilt in 1885 during the Qing Dynasty. There is a brook behind the Room, which divides the garden into front garden and back garden. There are many towers, bridges, corridors, artificial hills and pavilions in the garden. During the Qing Dynasty, Jingxin Room was used by the emperors, their wives and crown princes to rest and study.

There is also a restaurant named “Fangshan Restaurant” ocated at the north side of Qiong Island.”Fangshan” means that the foods and vegetables provided in this restaurant imitate those that were cooked in the court kitchen.Here, you can taste authentic palace foods. This restaurant was opened in 1925 by a worker that worked in the palace storeroom. That worker invited some cooks that worked in the kitchen in the Qing court to work together with him. In 1959, this restaurant was moved to the place where it now stands. It has received, from both home and abroad, many accolades from guests.

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Summer Palace

admin — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:41:45 +0000

The Summer Palace landscape, dominated by Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake, covers an area of 2.9 square kilometers, three quarters of which is water surface. Its 70,000 square meters of building space features a variety of palaces, garden and other ancient-style architectural structures. Well known for its large and priceless collection of cultural artifacts, it was among the first group of historical and cultural heritage sites in China to be placed under special state protection.

The Summer Palace, originally named Qingyi Yuan or the Garden of Clear Ripples, was first constructed in 1750. The Anglo-French Allied Forces destroyed it in 1860. The Government of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) started to rebuild it in 1886 with funds misappropriated from the Imperial Navy and other sources. Renamed two years later as Yihe Yuan or the Garden of Health and Harmony, it served as a summer resort for the Empress Dowager Cixi. Known also as the Summer Palace, it was ravaged by the Eight Power Allied Forces in 1900. The damage was repaired in 1902.

Its major attractions–the Four Great Regions, Suzhou Street, the Pavilion of Bright Scenery, the Hall of Serenity and the Wenchang Galleries have been restored.

The Summer Palace is a monument to classical Chinese architecture, in terms of both garden design and construction. Incorporating scenes from surrounding landscapes, it radiates not only the grandeur of an imperial garden but also the beauty of nature in a seamless combination that best illustrates the guiding principle of traditional Chinese garden design.

In December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List with the following comments:

1) The Summer Palace in Beijing is an outstanding expression of the creative art of Chinese landscape garden design, incorporating the works of humankind and nature in a harmonious whole;
2) The Summer Palace epitomizes the philosophy and practice of Chinese garden design, which played a key role in the development of this cultural form throughout the east;
3) The imperial Chinese garden, illustrated by the Summer Palace, is a potent symbol of one of the major world civilizations.

Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace
Official Website in English
Ticket: RMB 30 Yuan
Garden of Virtue and Harmony: RMB 5 Yuan
Tower of the Fragrance of the Buddha: RMB 10 Yuan
Suzhou Street&Hall of Serenity: RMB 10 Yuan

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Old Summer Palace (Ruins of Yuanmingyuan)

admin — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 05:52:28 +0000

Just northeast of Summer Palace is the Ruins of Yuanmingyuan (the Perfection and Brightness Garden). It was also called the Old Summer Palace by Western tourists, and is distinguished from the Summer Palace in this way. With an area of 346 hectares, it had been built into the largest and most magnificent garden during the reign of Emperor Qianlong in the Qing period.

Initial construction began in 1707, during the reign of Emperor Kangxi and was on a much smaller scale. It was intended as a gift for the emperor’s fourth son, later Emperor Yongzheng. In 1725, under Emperor Yongzheng, the Imperial Gardens were greatly expanded. Yongzheng introduced the waterworks of the gardens which created some of the lakes, streams and ponds which greatly complemented the rolling hills and grounds.

The Imperial Gardens were made up of three gardens: the Garden of Perfect Brightness proper, the Garden of Eternal Spring, and the Elegant Spring Garden; together they covered an area of 3.5 km?? (865 acres).

The Old Summer Palace is often associated with the European-style palaces built of stone. The designers of these structures, the Jesuits Giuseppe Castiglione and Michel Benoist, were employed by Emperor Qianlong to satisfy his taste for exotic buildings and objects. Sometimes, visitors unfamiliar with the former layout of the Old Summer Palace are misled to believe that it consisted primarily of European-style palaces. In fact, the area of the Imperial Gardens at the back of the Eternal Spring garden where the European-style buildings were located was small compared to the overall area of the gardens. More than 95% of the Imperial Gardens were made up of essentially Chinese-style buildings. There were also a few buildings in Tibetan and Mongol styles, reflecting the diversity of the Qing Empire.

Simulated Image

It was a tragedy that YuanMingYuan took so many years to raise to glory but only a few days of wanton destruction in 1860 to obliterate. Such was a painful waste for humanity, this fruit of man???s ingenuity, conceived as a Garden of all Chinese Gardens. Again, in 1900 the allied forces of the Eight Powers invaded Beijing and sacked the remaining buildings in the park. Many priceless artifacts that were plundered made their ways to the museums and private collections in Europe.

Ticket: RMB 25 Yuan

Website (in Chinese): http://www.yuanmingyuanpark.com

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Jingshan Park, Coal Hill

admin — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:33:17 +0000

The Coal Hill Park lies right to the north of the Palace Museum. It used to be a private garden of the imperial family. When the Imperial Palace was built in the early Ming Dynasty, the earth excavated to make the moat was piled up, and five peaks took shape. Coal was once heaped around the foot of the hill, it is therefore also known as Coal Hill. In Qianlong’s time, fruit trees grew and birds were raised in the grounds, the place was then called the Hundred Fruits Garden.

??Feudal emperors came here to climb the hill, attend the banquets, shoot arrows, and enjoy flowers as well. The hill is just behind the Forbidden City. It used to be a natural screen. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was regarded as “Dominating Hill”, a symbol of stability of the feudal rulers. Five pavilions were later built on the ridges,

From east to west they are: Guanmiaoting (Wonderful View Pavilion), Zhoushangting (Surrounding View Pavilion), Wanchunting (Everlasting Spring Pavilion), Fulanting (Panoramic View Pavilion) and Jifangting (Harmonious Fragrance Pavilion). From the hilltop, visitors can have a bird’s-eye view of the city. There used to be a bronze statue of a god in each of the pavilions. Unfortunately four of them were stolen by the allied forces of the eight powers in 1,900, and the one on the uppermost pavilion was totally damaged.

Entering the front gate, you come to Qiwanglou (Chamber of Beautiful Expectation) which stands with its back to the hill 43 metres high. In the old days there was a Confucius’ shrine in the building, where the Qing officials and scholars paid their respects to him. It is now a gift shop.

On your way up the hill from the eastern slope, you will come across a locust tree right below the Wonderful View Pavilion. There was formerly an old locust tree from which the last Ming emperor Chongzhen hanged himself when a peasant army led by Li Zicheng broke into Beijing in 1644. A new tree has been planted to mark the site.

On top of the hill, you will find the park located on the meridian line. It starts from Yongdingmen Gate at the southernmost city limit and runs northward through the Front Gate, Tian’anmen, the Forbidden City to the Everlasting Spring Pavilion and leads on to the Drum Tower and Bell Tower to the north. Looking southward on a bright sunny day, the yellow glazed-tile roofs of the Forbidden City glitter like thousands of gilded fish-scales under the sun. To the southwest lies the North Sea, Middle Sea and the South Sea. Further to the west is the White Dagoba which emerges on the island in Beihai Park like a maiden in her white sari, pretty, elegant and graceful. At night, the scene is unusually striking.

Behind the hill is Shouhuangdian (Hall of Imperial Longevity) where the portraits of the ancestors of the Qing court were housed. To its east is Guandedian (Hall of View of Virtue) used as a temporary resting-place for deceased emperors before burial.

The Coal Hill Park was opened to the public in 1928. After liberation, the buildings were renovated and flowers and fruit trees were planted. The Hall of Imperial Longevity was turned into a Children’s Palace. Now the Coal Hill Park has become one of the popular holiday resorts for the people of Beijing.

Entrance fee: RMB 3 yuan
The best place to overlook the Forbidden City and the old part of Beijing

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Beijing Zoo

admin — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:46:08 +0000

The Beijing Zoo was built in 1906 and opened to the public in 1908 with an area of about 10 hectares and a few humble pavilions to house the animals. At that time only several dozens of species were shown. such as lions, tigers, leopards and monkeys.

Now the Beijing Zoo covers an area of about 50 hectares. The animal houses and enclosures, with a total floor space of 40,000 square metres, include those for pandas, elephants, brown and polar bears, tigers, hippopotami, rhinoceros, antelopes, giraffes and reptiles. More than 6,000 animals of over 500 species are on show. Among them are giant pandas, golden monkeys, addaxes, tigers from Northeast China, elks, yaks, precious birds and gold fish. Also on show ale rare animals from various continents, such as hippopotami, zebras, giraffes. Chimpanzees, lions and antelopes from Africa, parrots from South America, birds and kangeroos from Australia, polar bears from the Arctic, bisons from Europe and Asian apes.

One of the most famous mammals in the world, the giant panda is meek and looks like a bear. With the exception of its shoulders, its limbs and the rims of its ears and eyes which are black, this lovable animal is white all over. Statistics show that China now has only approximately l,000 giant pandas living in the wild, in some remote mountain areas of Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.

Zoological research has proved that giant panda came into existence 600,000 to 700,000 years ago. Subsequent drastic changes in the climate resulted in deforestation which threatened its existence. The panda used to be a ferocious carnivore, but with environmental changes, it gradually became accustomed to a diet of mainly bamboo. As its natural habitation shrank, its numbers decreased, and the panda itself became docile.

To protect this rare animal, the Chinese Government has established 10 nature reserves in places where pandas are found: eight in Sichuan, one in Gansu and another in Shaanxi.

In 1955, giant pandas were exhibited in the Beijing Zoo. In 1978, by artificial insemination, the female giant panda Juanjuan gave birth to twins, one of which survived. Chinese pandas now symbolize the friendship between the Chinese people and the people of other countries. They have been sent to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Japan, the United States, France, Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany, Spain, Mexico and other countries.

Giant pandas live in humid and dense bamboo groves in mountainous areas at altitudes ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 metres. They are afraid of living in extreme weather conditions and make their lairs in tree holes or mountain caves. They seldom live in groups and eat bamboo leaves, sprouts and shoots. They mostly mate in April and May and give birth in autumn, with one or two cubs in each litter and occasionally three.

Admission Fee: RMB15 Yuan(including 5 for panda site)

Website: http://www.beijingzoo.com/

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Panaroma pictures 02

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