Sept 5 - 7
Just a quick overnight in Beijing - overlooking the back of the Forbidden City. This is so exciting.
Only the emperor could have 9 ornaments on the corners of each roof. What is also interesting in this photo are the scratches made on the tiles. These were made by the soldiers during the cultural revolution trying to take off the gold.
The next morning we started off for Chende, a town
about 3 hours north east of Beijing where the
Summer Palace was built. Unfortunately it was
rainy and foggy for the visit as the drive through
the mountains looked quite lovely.
We saw our first glimpse of the Great Wall, a section that was run down and not available to visit.
In the area around Chende are a number of Buddhist temples that have been extensively restored and one of which is still in use as by Buddhists. The Potala temple is a replica of the temple in Tibet that would be used by the Dalai Lama.
Some of the outer buildings are just shells, just there for effect.
Only the emperor could have 9 ornaments on the corners of each roof. What is also interesting in this photo are the scratches made on the tiles. These were made by the soldiers during the cultural revolution trying to take off the gold. 
No comments:
Post a Comment