So here are some of the places we saw...
*** Disclaimer: I was never very good at remembering things in school and that still holds true. All the information I provide is how and what I can remember. It may not be completely accurate. If you want accuracy, read my brothers blog.***
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| This was the view from the Peak Tram in Hong Kong. It was quite the journey up the mountain in the tram and the views of the city were magnificent! One of the things that struck me the most was how this city was built on such a hilly land. Kind of like San Fran and NYC combined. |
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| Hong Kong This is the largest Buddhist Temple in Hong Kong. The smell of incense permeated from the building. |
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| To be honest I'm not sure if this is from the Forbidden City or the Summer Palace in Beijing; either way it is the walkway that the Emperor was carried over. And he (or she as is the case with "the Evil Lady") was the only one who was able to be over the dragons. |
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| Forbidden City, Beijing I like this one for the symbolism. One lesson we took home was EVERYTHING means something in China. So in this case, the square gate is symbolic of Earth (where us commoners live) and the inner rounded gate is symbolic of Heaven (where the Emperor lives). |
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| This shows the doors up close! There are 9 rows of 9 gold knobs on all the doors. You are suppose to rub each knob in a row for good luck. If you only rub 4 then, well, your doomed. |
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| Forbidden City, Beijing These are little statues that are on every building in the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. The front statue is the Phoenix with 'dragon sons' behind it and then papa Dragon behind the sons. The number of dragon sons will tell you how important the building is. If there are 9 then it is very very important, because 9 is also a number that represents longevity. Are you noticing the significance of 9 yet?? |
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| Summer Palace, Beijing The Summer Palace was built as a gift for one of the Emperors' mother. The buildings in this pictures were used for celebrating her birthday. There are actually 3 separate buildings; one for her to get dressed in, one for her to pray (a temple) and the other for the celebration. So these gorgeous buildings were used once a year. That seemed to happen to a lot of the Emperors buildings as well as many buildings that were built for the Beijing Olympics. Some traditions just don't go away. |
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| THE GREAT WALL! I don't think I need to describe this one. The section we were on was called the Mutianyu Great Wall. |
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| Yong He Gong Temple We were able to visit a few Buddhist Temples in both Beijing and Hong Kong. It was easy to tell the tourist from the acting Buddhist, the ones with a pile of incense burning (sometimes with large flames) were the tourist and then those with just 3 sticks of incense may have known a little more about the religion or at least read the signs. The Buddha's we saw were amazing and to hear our tour guides story's about the Buddhist religion and it's relation to China was also very interesting. |
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| Tian Tan Buddha, Hong Kong This is the largest seated bronze outdoor Buddha in the world. (We had also seen the largest sandal wood indoor Buddha at the Yong He Gong Temple in Beijing) |
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| Hong Kong The wet market where Brian and Kristen venture to get some fresh, local groceries. |
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| Hong Kong Laser Light Show There couldn't have been a better way to end our visit with Brian and Kristen then at the Laser Light show. We could see parts of it from their apartment window but it was fun to see the whole thing as our final celebration of the trip. |
This is not all the sights we saw, but there will be more pictures of our adventures in the next installments!
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