Beijing, the old version

Last week we went to Beijing, the capital of China, the Heart of the Dragon. Beijing is a very diverse city. On one hand you have horse drawn carts:

  

and on the other hand you have Nike:

This week I will just write about the old Beijing. There are many amazing old things in Beijing, such as the Great Wall or the Forbidden City, and we went to all of them! The first amazing thing we went to was the Lamma Temple. It is a very old temple. Most of the temples in Beijing were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, but this one was one of the few that survived the Revolution. Two Emperors were born there. It was one of the major temples in Beijing. 

Here is a picture of the front gate:

 

This is a picture of a Prayer Wheel: people spin the wheel then pray while it is spinning.

The next big place that we went to was the Forbidden City. It was built six-hundred years ago and has 980 buildings with 1,707 rooms over 720,000 square meters of land! It was Incredible! 

It was so big! Here are some pictures from it:

Just outside the Forbidden City is Tiananmen Square. It is very famous for its central location and all the protests and demonstrations held there. 

A couple days later we went to the Great Wall. We got there by  train. It was a very nice trip and I got some good pictures of the Great Wall from the train:

The Great Wall was also amazing! Guess how long it is. Nobody really knows, but is estimated to be 10,000 to 20,000 km long. We only got to walk a little way though. Here is a picture:

Later that week we went to the Temple of Heaven. It was beautifully built with its design of rings. It was built to connect man to heaven. 

 

The last "old" thing that we went to in Beijing was a show about Kung Fu. The monks who did it were incredible! Here is a young monk (the one without hair!):

Next week I will do a post on the new Beijing, so bye for now

Jonathan

=P

Random Things....(I'm bored).

 This week we went on a two-hour hike near our apartment. The trail that we went on was the MacLehose trail. It is 100km long but we only did around 3km. It was about a ten-minute walk from our apartment. The walk was very steep at the beginning but then it got more level. It was all paved and there were quite a few people on the trail. We got home by bus which was very cheap. Here are some pictures from the trail.

One of the exercise places along the trail: 

 

A rest stop:

The stairs going down to the road:

A grave site. There is some money on the top to "help" the dead people through their "other lives":

And now a guest editorial by my Mom on a Yo-Yo Ma (Cello) concert that we attended:

"One of the advantages of living in a city of 7 million is the opportunity to enjoy word class artists. This past weekend we were privileged to attend a concert with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra (HKCO) and Yo-Yo Ma. The highlight was a new commissioned piece by a famous Chinese composer, Zhao Jiping, written specifically for Yo-Yo Ma and the HKCO. The program also featured other "amazing acoustic journeys" which echoed sounds from Tibet and China using ancient Chinese instruments (like the sheng & pipa) along with the cello. Yo-Yo Ma was as relaxed as any performer I have ever seen; he is truly a master. The general layout of the HKCO is similar to western orchestras, except the instruments are quite different. The stringed instruments include the ehru, gaohu, zhonghu, pipa and zheng. The wind instruments include the guan, suona and the sheng, which is like a mini pipe organ played by blowing. I'm sure Uncle Kroy and Kendra would be fascinated with these instruments."

Bye

=P

Jonathan

A Land of Magic

The highlight of my week was a trip to Hong Kong Disneyland. This Disneyland is only three years old. To reach the park we took a special subway train to the Disneyland Resort Station. Here are some pictures of the train:

The park is divided into four main themes: Main Street USA, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland and Adventureland. Here is a picture of the entrance:

 

 

 When we got into the park it didn't feel like we were in Hong Kong. It felt more like we were in the 1950's USA. The first thing we did was ride the train around the perimeter of the whole park. The one thing that I wasn't happy about was that the rollercoasters were closed. My favourite attraction was a show called Stitch Encounter. It was hilarious! We had lunch then we went to Tomorrowland because Main Street USA was all stores and restaurants.  In Tomorrowland there wasn't that much to do besides drive cars because all the rollercoasters were closed.

 We walked through Fanstasyland to get to Adventureland:

In Adventureland we went to the Lion King play:

We also went on the Jungle River Cruse. Then we went back home on the Subway and a minibus. It was an awesome day!

Bye 

=P