Luxury

Stairway to the second level of an upscale shop in Beijing. I don't remember which top designer, but the name and store would be right at home on Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills.

Twisted texture

Light in the window

I said I was done with my pictures from China, but as I wade through the many photos captured, I have found a few more to share. No stories, just pictures.

Well, there may be some stories too.

Farewell China

This marks the end of my China posts (OK, there may be a few more at some point) but this is number 17 in the series... more than I anticipated at the start.

At the beginning of this series I promised to not include the typical tourist photos, but I am not sure I have succeeded.  Undertaking a trip like this means focusing your time on the "must see" sites, which does not allow a lot of time for more interesting, beyond the obvious, picture taking.

It was a fantastic experience, a once in a lifetime, that I will forever remember,

Forbidden

The Forbidden City is no longer forbidden, you just need to pay the entrance fee.

It is a fascinating place... a few facts:

• The world's biggest ancient palace
• China's most popular tourist attraction
• Almost 600 years old
• A UNESCO World Heritage site
• Contains the largest collection of ancient wooden structures in the world
• It has 9,999 rooms (only heaven has more... was thought to have 10,000 rooms)

There were crowds of tourists (many of them Chinese) but I was lucky enough to capture these images with only a hint of the throng.

The Great Wall

The challenge of photographing well known, iconic places, is finding a unique perspective. In the end perhaps it is not worth trying. Maybe it is best just to open your eyes and enjoy being in the moment

Fresh fish

Grocery shopping is a bit different in the everyday markets of Beijing. Perhaps the fish are fresh, but there seemed to be an absence of refrigeration, which seems troubling. But it does not seem to bother the neighborhood shoppers.

Panda

I guess no trip to China is complete without a visit with the giant pandas.

Tang Dynasty Show

Our travels in China included a few shows that were really quite spectacular. At times I though that perhaps we are gone though a black hole and ended up in Disney World EPCOT. It is interesting that Disney has done such a marvelous job of imitating the exotic world that the world now seems to be an imitation of Disney.

Terracotta Army

The story of the terracotta warriors are pretty well known, but I was surprised to learn that these ancient relics were discovered less that forty years ago after being buried well over two thousand years. A farmer was digging a well and came upon a terracotta head. Chinese archaeologists began to investigate ultimately finding many thousands of sculptures at the site. That farmer is still alive and spends his days at the museum signing books for tourists (yes, we bought one).

The scale is impressive as was the number of visitors viewing the ruins as archaeologists continue to (literally) put the pieces together. The picture below is of only one "pit"... there are three others, but they are smaller.

Curious burial

There is mystery around the hanging coffins that can be found along the rivers in China. No one seems to know exactly how old they are, and even more perplexing, how they were placed in such precipitous locations hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

Dragon

New towns

As a result of the higher water level caused by the Three Gorges Dam, about one and half million people had to be relocated to higher ground. In many cases this meant families giving up land that had been farmed for many generations. The government provided high-rise apartments, which of course meant giving up farming. This has resulted in many leaving the rural life and instead working in manufacturing.

Being forced to make this change would seem to be greatly resented by the people, but we were told it was accepted for the common good... a central premise of Communism.

More power

The Three Gorges Dam serves several purposes, but the main function is to generate power. Lots of power. It is the world's largest power station in terms of capacity... 22,500 MW to be precise.

It also increases the navigation capacity of the Yangtze above the dam, and controls flooding below the dam.

The project was completed only a few years ago, although there are still some features that are under construction.

Big dam project

When traveling up the twisting Yangtze River you eventually encounter the Three Gorges Dam. This means the water level rises over 500 feet from one side of the dam to the other, requiring a multi-step lock system of five levels. The process requires about four hours to complete.

We entered the first lock at the end of the day so most of the process happened under cover of night.

One da-la

Where ever there are tourists, there are hucksters, ready to take their money. That is just is true in China as anywhere else in the world.

The hawkers all seemed to be saying "one dollar" indicating they will take good old American dollars. It was never obvious what the dollar would buy, and our experience was it that it is best not to ask. If you show the slightest interest they are very difficult to shake.

But I guess they are just trying to make it in life, just like the rest of us.

Life on the river

We spent five days on the Yangtze River during our travels in China. Over those days we did not see one pleasure craft. There were a few other cruise ships but mostly we encountered many dozens of freighters and barges. This is the super highway of southern China.

The barges were burdened with stone and gravel and coal. A few were loaded with bright yellow sulfur. There were cranes and loaders and payload transfers between ships.

The weather was dark overcast and moist, which added the the feeling of this being a peculiar means of travel.

Antenna

An unusual top for an antenna. I suspect it is to ether attract or repel lightning. But I have never seen an apex like that until I saw several like it in China. It kinda adds to the spookiness of the scene.

But what is even more interesting is to look to the horizon and notice the sea of high-rise apartment buildings. They are everywhere in the cities, and even in the country where "new" cities are being built. They are usually at about 30 stories tall and much wider than tall meaning each holds hundreds of families. And each building is often part of a development that contains a dozen or more additional and identical structures.

There are a lot of people in China... almost a billion and a half... nearly twenty percent of the world population. That means a lot of apartment buildings.

Strange highway markings

Not unexpected, but still surprising, is the (to me) curious letter symbols of the Mandarin language. But even more unexpected is that most of the signage provides a subtitle in English. Our western language seemingly extends to products and packaging and just about everything else in China.

China

I just returned from two weeks in China. What I found was not exactly what I expected. It is a country of great contrasts... from gleaming towers of glass, to traditional Chinese architecture. From the super rich, to the super poor. From exotic sports cars, to pedaled rickshaws. Crazy traffic, but on modern well maintained highways (sometimes with three or four bridges stacked). 

And I saw more capitalism than Communism.

I captured many pictures on the trip, but most are of the tourist genre, and I will not be posting them. I will, however, be posting a few images over the next week or so of my observations.