2010 Trip to China - Beijing & Xian
- Beijing & Xian - Guilin - Suzhou & Shanghai - China Photography -
At the Great Wall with our Chinaspree guide, Ming Li, who was fantastic. - 0090
At the Great Wall with fellow Chinaspree tour members from California - 0089
You can climb to "a point" along the Great Wall. You don't "climb the Great Wall." It's like the Himalayas: you don't get to the top and talk trash. You stay long enough to take in the view, then start back down before you freeze to death. Very humbling these things. -0091
Back with BeYonne. Good morning Chirman Mao. Good to see you again - 0001
In the Forbidden City: if you can get pass the human suffering that too often conditions monumental architecture, there is wonderment and beauty to relish - 0077
The Forbidden City, I was surprised to see how different the gardens look in the summer - 0599
The Forbidden City: having been already, I could focus more on my artzy-fartzy sensibilities...textures- 0049
One of my favorite places in Beijing is the park around the Temple of Heaven. Seniors and retired people come to the park everyday, to dance, exercise, sing and socialize. Pretty amazing.- 1142
Photo taken from the same section of the park. Quite a statement in my view, about what puplic spaces can and should be. - 0168
This is my ride at the Summer Palace. I like to take friends out onto the lake when I'm in town. - 1155
A view of a pagoda, off the lake at the Summer Palace - 0107
This photo captures both the beauty and my sense of foreboding whenever I was about the Summer Palace.
One cool thing about the timing of our trip, we met lots of Chinese nationals who were also vacationing to see these places - 0181
A return to the Bird's Nest with BeYonne. ...bright moments - 1170
Dinner in Beijing..., the hotels and meals were all first rate on this tour - 1175
When I shot this photo, I thought it was a graffiti-styled notice on a wall, but realize it was a billboard. Taken in Xian under totally bizarre lighting conditions, We were on the bus and moving, so the trees were not my friend. I was lucky to ger one of the figures pictured and one of four beautiful Chinese characters. It's one of the most unforgetable and emotional images of the trip, from a billboard recalling a historic victory at Lishan Mountain, with images of two famous generals, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng (pictured).
New iPhone camera let me down on this photo, but Kevin, our guide in Xian, was great. - 1240
Now in Xian, the ancient capitol, hanging out with our Terra Cotta Warrior peopz - 1352
Resident movie historians, Thedra and BeYonne very much liked the chariots at the Terra Cotta Warrior Museum - 1159
A "market of lights" in Xian! BeYonne almost kept her eyes open on this photo - 1312
Xian is towards the South and like Shanghai, gets way hot and humid. Night markets are literally cool - 1328
Even as china gallops toward modernity, it seems keen to cherish its past and is beginning to protect its "worlds beyond CNN" - 1319
Another scene at the Night Market in Xian. Note the sign has both Arabic and Chinese script - 1320
- Beijing & Xian - Guilin - Suzhou & Shanghai - China Photography -