We Landed in China on the 1st of January 2004
China was really fascinating, it has liberated itself from its isolation, now it is open to the world.
We will start with Beijing ( Peking)
The first thing we visited was the outer walls of the Forbidden City, the picture of Mao Zedong that you see here is almost the only picture of him in all China.
Mao lived in this City, occupying only three rooms .
The Forbidden City is situated in the Tian'an men square.
The Forbidden City is surrounded by walls, it is also surrounded by a water way, in fact since 600 years it is a kind of palace for the Chinese Emperors. it took almost 18 years during the Chang Dynasty to finish the main part of the city .
In this palace 24 Emperors followed.
Many Chinese visit the city coming from all parts of China
No one could enter inside the walls of the Forbidden City , but the Emperors .
But I will take you for a tour inside the Forbidden City
This palace comprises 9000 rooms. Its first part contains the Emperors royal rooms followed by the second part where he received his guests
The movie of the last emperor was shot inside the forbidden city.
As you will see the forbidden city is composed of endless buildings situated each one behind the other on a straight line going from the entrance to the end of the city .
Every building had a sort of utility some have a shrine , the Chinese emperors and their followers and guests used to occupy. They could sit and discuss maters of life and the country.
Every time you go deeper you find another sort of temple or palace , each with a different shape .
At the right In the foreground you can see some of our group gathering around our Chinese guide nicknamed "JOE" , he is holding a red flag .
From this forbidden city, China was ruled for a period that goes more than 500 years. They call this city sometimes the Purple City because of the colors of its bricks.
This is how the inside of the temples look like .
The shrine is situated in the middle, at every side you can find Chinese styled chairs and tables that the emperors used when they rested to drink Tea.
Down: Joe our guide is leading the group to one of the endless temples, it was very cold , they are all dressed with overcoats and shoals
It goes on and on , as long as you go deeper in the forbidden city the more palaces you will find, each with a different shrine at the inside. See below
When we came out of the forbidden city we found that the small water way that surrounded the city was all frozen .
The days went by and we were visiting a site or more every day
Below is the TEMPLE OF HEAVEN
You can see at the lower right corner of the photo two ladies from our group,
They were smiling but their smile could not hide how cold they were.
Below is a view of the Temple of Heaven, showing the many ports positioned in a cascade way, so you can see them all in a beautiful perspective.
Below is a general view of the Temple of Heaven. with many fences -walls surrounding the main Shrine were if someone stood in its center he would directly go to heaven .
Below is a nice picture of some of the group, preparing to have launch, in one typical Chinese restaurant . Look at how the restaurant is colorful and wonderfully decorated
Below This is Beijing streets , very large and neat , the buildings are of a modern architecture.
When the group was all together we used to take a bus as a way of transportation, it was very pleasant. because with the bus we always had a different guide .
This
is our Beautiful Chinese guide .
She was as sweet as her name ( Candy ).
She was our guide in, Shanghai.
In every courtyard of a temple you find statues that represent , lions and dragons
I love these statues , they always inspire the strength of China.
More of the group is contemplating this statue of a kind of a beast or a dragon.
That day in Beijing the temperature was near zero degrees centigrade.
Below : This is a palace and the lake at its foot is completely frozen !!
This is a Chinese styled gazebo on the same frozen lake, from it we watched sun set
Then came the day to visit the great walls of China.
One of the many pleasures of visiting a new country, and making sight seeing, is with no doubt SHOPPING .
Here the group forgot about the great wall and rushed on that small market to buy anything that would help them during their climbing to the wall .
Fur hats, and scarves,
The group was divided into three parties.
The cable cars taking us to the top of the hill so we can reach the great walls of China.
How marvelous to be walking on the great wall of China,
Its like when foreigners come and visit the Pyramids.
It was a sunny cold day, the air was so pure, some parts were very steep to descend. Others had steps .
This is a general view of the wall .
Of course it is only a very short part, we learned that the entire length of the wall is 6700 KM.
This is almost the length of the river Nile from its source in Africa to the Mediterranean Sea
The wall goes on and on ....
We walked all that part from that tower you can see at the top, till we reached the bottom.
In the way there are different ups and downs like a roller coaster.
Every few distances there was a tower, these towers were made as a kind of watch gates all along the length of the wall.