This is a short post about what they call a rich-man's house. This happens to be a real house that is still owned by the original descendant. The descendant is probably as wealthy as his predecessors but the state has something to say about his ability to continue to own something they term a treasure. Thus he still owns it but it's a tourist site.
First off, the house is actually really large with many rooms and gardens. Again when tour guides take you around they point out this and that, but only the things they think you should be interested in and if someone deviates from the path, they get frustrated. Also only a portion of the home has been restored and/or open.
This is the entrance of the house and you will notice that there are 4 posts above the door. The greater the number of posts, the wealthier the home. Also notice the door threshold and its material and size. Again this is an indicator of wealth.
This is the main entry plaza as seen from the second level.
This is the map of the whole house and the plaza is the center-right opposite the car.
This is one of the side gardens and railing details.
Here shows the details of some of the ceiling work and the beauty of the one of the outdoor murals.
Also part of the tour is a reenactment of this Nationality tea wedding ceremony. There where three parts and different teas where served during each segment. (The video is a little ragged.)
Lastly, this was one of the first uses of my new 14-24 f2.8 lens. This is a fantastic lens but I have a lot to learn in using it. Shooting something this wide makes me have to think about the shot in a different way.
From a funny event standpoint, nothing much happened in Beijing. This was expected since Beijing is a very international city. As for other cities, especially in inland areas, the standard question of 'Can I take a picture with you?' happened often but not as often as my first trip to China. (Being 6'5" and obvious American does tend to facilitate this.)
The first one really happened in Kunming where I almost took a tour of the cities sewer system.
It was this manhole cover that was either not secured or the inner lip is missing, but when I stepped on the edge of this cover, it flipped up. Since my feet are big, my heel landed on the outside edge and I was able to catch myself. The cover did pop off. This surprised everyone in our party but also provided entertainment for the locals. I laughed and kicked the manhole plate back into place, then took the picture. Now the really funny thing. Jennah noticed that once we left, several of the locals tried to repeat what I did. Hum not sure what to make of that, Darwin? But the last I know, they did not succeed.
The second funny event was just a conversation that Jennah overheard. She mentioned that a boy was asking her mother about Jennah and I, He thought I was British but his mom thought I was Australian. (I guess I am not typical?)
The third one was this one. We where watching some of the other nationalities, of which there are about 30 different ones in China. Well this was a traditional folk dance done by the elderly. I took a couple of pictures but decided that a more personal video would be fun. I knelt by the time keeper, (whistle blower) and took a video of the women dancing and men playing the instruments.
When the dance finished, the time-keeper motioned to see the picture that I took. I thus showed her the video with sound and she got excited and called over all the other women dancers, thus I was mobbed. I was kneeling on the ground with my camera in front, surrounded by all these elderly women in garb, laughing and pointing. The only problem was that Qun and Jennah could not get a picture of the scene.
This is just a fun picture of vegetable transportation, two vans.
And this is a man and his machine. These things run all over the place, not fast but seem to be rugged and China would come to a complete stop if they were forced off the road..
And these saws are safe. (Rock cutters.)
The electrical. I did not take as much as I wanted. It just gets old, it is almost like the driving, it is so common that it becomes invisible. But here are a couple of pictures that I just could not resist. This is the on/off switch for the air conditioner.
And now for the driving. The North does not drive as crazy as the South so things where a lot less dramatic. Also people are starting to follow the rules of the road more so there is still hope. :-) There was no real cliff hangers but I did want to include a couple of videos for your viewing. The third one is long and shows more of a drive through a town. One thing that I noticed was everything always looks like it is in a state of construction.
One thing that I find amazing is the number and quality of temples. I realize that the Chinese people have been very religious in the past but after the Cultural Revolution and the current philosophy, I would not have expected the high role temples play in people's lives. Part of this is more tourist points rather then religious. Now is probably a good point for a tangent, the impression that I get of Chinese tourist is they would like to get to a certain point, take a picture, then travel to the next point. The idea of exploring or going off the path tends to be foreign to the older generation, maybe the younger ones will be different. (And yes I drove the tour guides batty since I was always wondering off, aka tours that they expected would last 1.5 hours lasted 3.)
Here are a set of Beijing temples with their parks.
Art work; some of which is being restored or rebuilt.
Here are the temples of the inland China when we visited there. The cities are Kunming, Dali, Lijiang and Shangri-La.
Here in Kunming we found this temple with the city built right up to it. There is now regret about letting development come so close to it. This shows the changing attitude in China.
Confucius's home town. This was a change of pace. Most of the other temples have either been rebuilt, restored or redone in some fashion, here things have not really changed as much. It was nice to see the faded and chipped paintings.
Confucius's cemetery. Here only descendants of Confucius can be buried. There are many tombs and this last picture is Confucius's tomb.
Well just got back from a 3 week vacation in China. We tend to travel around once we get to China.
Great Wall.
Today the couple that was showing Jennah and I around Beijing took us to the city of Jinshanling. It's about 100km outside of Beijing and a couple of their friends joined us. This was one of the most enjoyable outings so far since their friend is also a photographer, he knows the area and also knows the famous photographer Zhou Wanping, who lives very humbly next to the Wall he loves.
With that introduction, I learned a lot about my camera, lens and how to shoot pictures all together. So unlike the main tourist section of the Wall in Beijing, this section has less reconstruction and a lot less people. I was surprise that there was less than 50 people about when we where there and a lot of my pictures I could take without anyone being seen.
So we cheated a bit, we took the tram up to the top and avoided the hike. Since my guides where my seniors, we saved our hiking for the wall itself and that brings me to the first picture. This is the first site that you see off the tram.
This is is a bit deceptive because once you walk past that set of bushes you are presented with this. It was very hazy or rainy the whole time I was in China. Which on a side note was a good thing for the farmers and people since there has been a long 3 year drought.
Looking left.
Looking right.
Now this presented a problem, I wanted to explore the whole thing and now realized that I could spend a couple of days doing it. As it turned out I only got the three of the battlements. The one in the first picture is the starting point from the tram and from there you can turn right of left. We turned left to go to the one battlement that has the least to no reconstruction. This is a picture of it from the approach.
I guess now is time for a few select pictures.
This is the group that showed me around. The only language that we shared was photography.
