Date: Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 5:56 PM
To:
Good Morning
It's 4;30 in the afternoon and I've just woken up from a midafternoon nap, although for my body it's 4:30 in the morning. I have the next 5 days to get used to the time change. We were exactly 12 hours ahead in China, so if you're going to visit there I recommend you give yourself the extra time on your return trip to allow your body to catch up.
Anyway on with my thoughts on Beijing. It's not as populous as Chongqing with only 21 million. (only 2/3 of the population of Canada) But whereas Chongqing includes in its population all the outlying areas similar to the GTA (i.e. Mississauga, Oakville, Oshawa, etc.) the 21 million in Beijing is just the city proper population. This makes it the 3rd most populous city in the world. You could spend 2 weeks in Beijing and still only scratch the surface of everything there is to see. We had 2 and 1/2 days. We saw Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, an evening performance called "The Golden Mask Dynasty ", and of course, The Great Wall. I'm going to devote a separate email to the visit to the Great Wall because it was almost the main reason I went to China. This email will talk about the other things we did and saw.
The first photo is of Tiananmen Square.
With all of the political strife that we in the western world have heard about in the last few years I expected to see or feel more, but to tell you the truth, it's just a big concrete plaza and seemed kind of boring.
The Forbidden city was much more interesting to see and although we didn't see it all, we were told it housed a thousand rooms! Imagine the decadence and extravagance. I have attached a dragon photo because they were always used to symbolize the emperor and this guy was huge.
The next three photos were from the evening performance we went to. Each photo has it's own little story.
#1: Early on in the show this woman came out and started contorting her body in ways that were unbelievable. In the attached shot she is face down with her back stretched out over her head. She did things much more extreme, but this is the best photo I got of her.
#2: Performing Peacocks. I kid you not. These large birds perched on the dancers heads and bobbed and moved along with 12 woman's movements and at a prearranged moment they all flew solo across the stage. " Exit stage Right". Who teaches Peacocks choreography?
#3: As the show was in it's closing moments, the stage expanded out along the sides to surround us and water started rushing out of everywhere. Joani was so startled she jumped. I think she thought the arena was flooding. I'm not sure what I thought, but I was too dumbfounded to move. All in all, it was quite an extravaganza!
The last photo was of the Summer Palace. A sort of getaway an Emperor built for one of his consorts. Imagine having the power and money to build a summer getaway for your girlfriend, comprised of 2.9 square kilometers of sculptured gardens and lakes.
Impressive!! I hope she was impressed.
Garry
No comments:
Post a Comment