This year Valentine's Day and the Chinese New Year fell on the same day. For China this is the year of the tiger. A good occasion to show some more of where we were when visiting our son.
In every city the old and the new is next to each other. This is a beautiful old bridge in Beijing, the capitol, and just a stone throw away is a new bridge of brick. The middle part of this bridge looks the oldest, with the parts oneach side added later.
One thing is for sure, traffic is horrid, since it includes many bikes, mopeds, and scooters, and even moped-taxi's!.The ones who own a car are well-to-do. Maybe you've heard of the joke that there are only two traffic rules here. One is to stop for a red light. Two is to wait for the police to come when involved in an accident.
In the old days, entertainment for the royal family of China was happening in their tea house in the gardens ( the Forbidden City, Beijing).
Now it's a cinema downtown (Nanchang, 12 hours West from Shanghai). Nightlife is still going strong at midnight when I took the pic. Taken from the 11th floor where we were staying in an apartment.
This is a feature of the grand history, an intricate and detailed ceiling of a dome of one of the buildings of the Great Wall
Nowadays this is how many small businesses in China operate. Their garage is their store, and they live above it, in the same building. These are the fancy and nice stores in a good neighborhood! The most modern stores were in Shen-shen, across from Hong Kong. Their prices were "modern" too!
18 comments:
What a lovely walk down memory lane Jeannette, thanks for taking me back to beautiful Beijing!
This is a wonderful juxtapositioning of the old and the new. I enjoyed reading your story and the pictures. Thanks for sharing, Jeannette.
Oh, and about the traffic. It sounds like a familiar thing to us who live in Bandung.
Wow! A look behind the bamboo curtain is something we don't experience every day!
Nice shots of a place I will probably never visit. That tea house is so pretty. Somehow, it all looks delicate - even the bridge. Obviously not too much or it wouldn't still be there.
That bridge is my favourite bridge in Beijing. When I was there in Winter the whole lake had ice a metre thick - you could see the lotus leaves in the clear ice and people were skating - it made a beautiful picture. Thanks for the reminder.
Jane,
Loved it in that city because of all the cultural things there, and eating roasted Peking duck of course;) As a capitol though I though there would be more modern parts. We visited the summer before the Olympics, so maybe they added some modern facilities:)
Eiki,
You're welcome! When we came back it struck me how even on our(we think crazy) freeways the driving is so QUIET and leisurely, LOL
Wil,
Even though I was amazed and somewhat confused about their strong entrepreneurial spirit (so different from Eastern Europe when it was still behind the iron Curtain), communism is still visible!
Stephanie,
Never say never! Who knows when there comes an opportunity! Many of the old buildings are of stone and wood -they must upkeep
painting:)
Weaver,
You're welcome, Weaver! Wow, do you still have that pic, with people ice skating on it?
What a wonderful place ... I especially love the bridge ... old and new together.
Wonderful shots of an interesting country. Love the shot of that red building. Was that the tea house?
I like pictures with people in it; I think it's more interesting that way.
For example the picture with the white bridge; the pedestrian (your hubby I suppose) gives it a further dimension, the bridge isn't just a pretty inanimate object, it's something that serves people, it has an important function in their life.
Clytie,
Yes, Beijing is a wonderful cultural city - we were there only 3 days -too short (sigh), but our son had to go back to teach, and we needed his Chinese too much to get around
Jen,
Except for the capitol (Beijing) and Hong Kong (separate from China) not many people venture out yet in mainland China, since it is still a communistic country. But I and hubby both like traveling in uncharted regions.
Duta,
Maybe you like people more than architecture? Which is okay or course. I have more to tell about people, but that will be in another future post:)
Beautiful shots!
(I thought I'd been following your blog all this time and when I checked, I was not! I remedied that *smile*)
Kathryn
...I thought that you WERE a follower -Don't know how it disappeared...anyways...thank you!
I thought after commenting on your post about persona and personality, that it was interesting that you were able to take 2 psychological concepts and integrate them so well in your post (persona is a concept of Jung, originally meaning: mask)) -of course that's why you're a writer and I'm not:)
the city always seems to be hiding a secret...
we loved our visit there...such an emotional time.
Muse,
This is really a city of stark contrasts...Big cities have their own personality...were you there for the Olympics? These pics were taken a year before.
Reading the last two posts - first of all I love pink. In the past my Mom and I decorated our house in shades of pinks with other colors. It was so calming. I was just thinking this morning how I would like a pink bedroom, but now that I have a husband to consider i "pink" not. I do like the pink sunsets too.
As far as China, love your pics. Is your son still there? How great to be able to visit with a local and even better, family guide.
Midwesttomidlands,
Oh wow, I don't think I could have lived in the house where your mother and you live. Interesting how a color can be so emotionally-laden. When we moved into our condo last year, the first thing we did was to paint the pink bedroom and the moss green living room into an almost white color.
Yes our son still teaches English there. I and hubby both don't like group or guided tours, but we don't know a word of Chinese. Our son can understand enough to get us from one plane or taxi to our destination, or to order food, so that was a good combination:)
I envy all the travelling you have done.
Matthew,
But you travel too though! Only shorter distances:) Not too late to save up for a big trip (wherever you want to go to)!
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