Photo Gallery:  China 2006

Being a visual account of a two-week trip to China in January and February of 2006 to visit our daughter, who was working in Shijiazhuang at the time.

This page: The Great Wall at Juyongguan and the first part of the Summer Palace at Chengde

Gallery 1 | Gallery 2 | Gallery 3 | Gallery 4 | Gallery 5 | Gallery 6 | Gallery 7 | Gallery 8

The Great Wall

The Great Wall at Juyongguan, north of Beijing. This is a pass in the Yan Mountains that was defensively important, so the wall completely surrounds the original town as well as extending off over the mountains in both directions.

Kiri and me

Kiri and I, preparing for the climb.

The Great Wall

The portion of the wall the three of us ascended.

Julie and me

Here Julie and I are on the ramparts of the town's south gate, with the Wall behind us.

barbarians

Here we are again, looking like the barbarians we are.

Juyongguan

Juyongguan.

View from a tower

The view from one of the towers.

Up on a tower

It was cold up there. You know how when you're packing for a trip, you always forget some little thing? I'd forgotten my gloves. Climbing the Wall was when I first really regretted that.

Looking east

A view across Juyongguan, taking in some of the eastern part of the Wall. Notice the graffiti in the foreground? There was graffiti in Chinese, English, Hindi, Russian...

On the wall

This was about as high as we got. It was really cold, and it felt as if the air was getting thin (though we weren't really at that high an altitude), and we were getting tired!

The eastern wall

This is looking out at the eastern part of the wall around the town; we'd climbed the western side.

At the Zen Buddhist temple

Here we are a day later, in the town of Chengde, where the Qing emperors had a mountain resort/summer palace/hunting lodge, well north of the Great Wall. (The Qing were Manchu; north of the Wall was their homeland.) There were originally twelve famous temples surrounding the imperial compound; eight are still standing, and we visited one of them -- Pule Si, a Zen Buddhist temple. This is one of the buildings inside the temple compound.

Pule Si forecourt

The temple forecourt at Pule Si.

The central shrine

Looking up at the central shrine.

The central shrine

The central spire again...

The central spire

...and again.

View from the shrine

The view from atop the central shrine.

The spire

A closer look at the spire. Alas, they didn't allow photos inside any of the buildings.

The summer palace grounds

In the old imperial summer resort. This was intended to be a photo of three deer that were hanging around, but I admit I can't see them.

Frozen ponds

The ponds were intended to provide cooling breezes in the heat of summer, but in February they were solidly frozen over, and the locals used them as a skating rink.

More frozen ponds

Whatever I was trying for with this picture, I think I missed.

Julie and Kiri

Julie and Kiri in the courtyard of one of the pavilions.

On the ice

Three things to see here: In the center, an ice-skater. To the left, someone on one of the weird little ice-sleds the Chinese use. And to the right, one of the nicest of the outlying pavilions.

Chengde

The view from a pavilion, looking out at the modern town of Chengde beyond the resort walls.

Gallery 1 | Gallery 2 | Gallery 3 | Gallery 4 | Gallery 5 | Gallery 6 | Gallery 7 | Gallery 8

--------------------------------------

The Misenchanted Page
Front Page | Main Site | E-mail me!