Beijing - Day 2 & 3

Broadcast tower from the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics

Walkway of Olympic village

The Bird's Nest

The Olympic torch

The Ice Cube where Phelps won his Gold metals.

IBM Building built to look like a dragon. The head is on the left and the buildings to right make up the body and then the tail.

The rest of the dragon body and tail of the big IBM building.

The Summer Palace is a palace in Beijing, China. The Summer Palace is mainly dominated by Longevity Hill and the Kunming Lake. It covers an expanse of 2.9 square kilometres, three quarters of which is water.
Longevity Hill is about 60 metres (200 feet) high and houses many buildings positioned in sequence. The front hill is rich with splendid halls and pavilions, while the back hill, in sharp contrast, is quiet with natural beauty
The central Kunming Lake covering 2.2 square kilometres was entirely man made and the excavated soil was used to build Longevity Hill. In the Summer Palace, one finds a variety of palaces, gardens, and other classical-style architectural structures.

This building was only used on the emperor's birthday.

The Long Corridor is a covered walkway in the Summer Palace in Beijing, China. First erected in the middle of the 18th century, it is famous for its length (728 m) in conjunction with its rich painted decoration (more than 14,000 paintings).

In all of the palaces, the doorways had a big board to step over.  It was there to keep ghost out since ghost couldn't step over it.  It sure did trip us up a lot.

Boat made of marble. It was just used for sitting on and looking over the lake.

Leaving the Summer Palace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Forbidden City -

In the early 1400s, the third Ming Emperor, YongLe, moved the capital of China to Beijing. In 1406, he began construction of a new 'Forbidden City' that would include an imperial palace complex of vast proportions - a grand design.

Located at the exact center of the ancient city of Beijing, the palace was the home and center of power for 24 emperors during the mid to later Ming and Qing dynasties.

The extensive grounds cover over 700,000 square meters. There are around 800 buildings that have about 9,000 rooms in total. The Forbidden City is the world's largest palace complex.

The emperor's bedroom

Tree made of gold

The Great Wall

This the section of the Great Wall that we visited. It's the furthest away from Beijing. It's not visited as much as the closest one to Beijing.

We rode the gondola up to the top of the Great Wall.

In the distance, you can see the great wall going across the tops of the mountains.

We rode a slide back down!

 

This is a park in the Temple of Heaven.  We got there early in the morning and many older people use the park to work out. I think they are in better shape then we are.

Another group of retired people playing cards. They are really serious about their cards.

Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests- This is where the emperor came to pray twice a year for a good harvest.

It was completely made of wood.  Lighting struck it a few times and burned down.

Circular Mound Altar- This alter was build for religious purposes, especially for ceremonies to pray for rain by the emperor in times of drought. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368 - 1911 AD), the emperors would offer sacrifices to Heaven on the day of the Winter Solstice every year. Sacrificial animals and other offerings were burned here to ensure good harvests. A common animal slaughtered here was the bull, which the people would set on fire as a sacrifice of prosperity. This ceremony was to thank Heaven and pray that everything would be good in the future.

We visited th Hutongs.  Hutongs are a type of narrow streets or alleys, most commonly associated with Beijing, China. In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of siheyuan, traditional courtyard residences. Many neighbourhoods were formed by joining one siheyuan to another to form a hutong, and then joining one hutong to another. The word hutong is also used to refer to such neighbourhoods.

We took a bicycle carriage around the hutongs.

The is the hutong that we visited. A very nice family lived there. Around the courtyard was 3 really small homes. The parents lived in one. The two sons and their families lived in the other two. Hutongs are normally passed down from family to family.

The number of knobs with writing tells you how important the person that lives there.