Date : 1st January 2010
Place : Garden of Perfect Brightness 圆明园, The Place @ State Road 世贸天阶, Nan Luo Old Street 南锣鼓巷
So in this part 2 of our Day 6 Beijing Trip, we first visited this place where it represents one of the darkest spot in China History called the Gardens of Perfect Brightness, also known as the Yuan Ming Yuan Park 圆明园.
As you may have already known, Qing Dynasty Emperors loved to build Royal Gardens everywhere. Just to name a few of it, we have the Summer Palace mentioned before in Day 6 part 1 and the Mountain Resort in Cheng De 承德避暑山庄. And of course this Yuan Ming Yuan Park was only 1 of their many huge Royal Garden projects. But in fact, it topped them all not only as the largest but also the most extensive collection of art works at that time, before it was burned down and robbed by the British and French troops. The story in between is too long for me to elaborate over here so please google "Second Opium War" if you are interested to know why. =)
Such a huge garden being burned down by invading enemies, it was protected and left as. No wonder the locals don't really feel like visiting this place. Our tour guide chose to stay in the bus, claiming that he was too dishearened to go into the park.
As I mentioned before most of the area were burned down, so actually there were nothing much left to see inside the Yuan Ming Yuan Park.
.
but it was still one of my favourite places in Beijing due to its rich yet sad history.
Anyway, we just visited the Western Mansion area 西洋楼.
which now of course only ruins are left.
This area was known as Da Shui Fa 大水法, just another way for them to call a Fountain. It used to look something like this.
but after that fire and 100+ years of history, now it became something like this. No more water spilling out from the ground.
The ruins were maintained and regarded as a symbol of foreign aggresion and humiliation in China.
The Arch in front of Da Shui Fa.
one of the most significant architectures left in Yuan Ming Yuan Park.
In front of the Baroque-styled Arch.
Solo 1.
Solo 2.
Solo 3.
Pillars.
Western style carving..
Another area beside Da Shui Fa.
Well, for this part of the area it used to look something like this.
The Thinker.
Eih, never notice there were girls behind me...
Then before we left, 1 last photo of it.
Just looked so beautiful even with the ruins.
Just saddening to see such beautiful (I can imagine that) piece of architectures being totally destoryed by invaders. Wars Wars Wars.
Actually the Chinese government are trying to rebuild this park to once its glory moment. While this panorama model showed virtual images of it. We didn't get to see it though.
But from the board, I noticed a few meaningful lines.
100多年过去了,圆明园昔日的辉煌曾是中华民族的骄傲,让几代人为之兴奋和感叹.但面对这片废墟,人们只能在梦中去拼凑那残缺不全的圆明园盛世景观.Well said, nicely described my feelings after visiting this place.
Allright, enough is enough, we slowly walked out to the gate.
Bokeh.
Cat Spotted.
tried to play with him but he wasn't so interested.
benched.
Frozen Lake everywhere.
The general map of Yuan Ming Yuan Park.
The area that we visited just now was only like 10% of the total area.
See how huge it used to be??
Especially the portion of the lakes took...
After that we were brought to the famous Silk Street for some shoppings. It was a multi-stories building selling Petalling Street style items (you know what I mean). My opinion, once you stucked yourself too long in the building, evenrtually you would get tired of bargaining the price with them. The initial price they offered was way too insane wei....Selling items?? Looked pretty much the same in every stall...
Before we went for our dinner, the tourguide brought us to this highclass place.
It was called 世贸天阶 with the slogan "All Beijing Please Look Up" (全北京向上看). Why said so?
Because they had one of the longest largest TV screen in the World installed on top of you.
Apparently this area was really called "The Place".
Under the tree sitting alone in the Winter.... >.<
Christmas Decorations...
Camwore...
playing with some slow shutter effect.
Nothing much interesting about what they showed on the screen..
Furthermore, I believe everyone would get neckache by staring at it for 5 minutes. lol.
We didn't spend too long over there.
Well, it was understandable
and it was Time to go, for dinner.
After dinner, we walked along this old style alley.
It was kinda relaxing actually as they had music store, restaurants, shops selling random stuffs and etc.
Shop Closed. Just a decoration only though.
Quiet Alley.
Random shop selling random stuffs. =)
In front of a Restaurant.
Went in empty handed. Came out also empty handed.
last photo of the day before we went back to our hotel.
That's all for Day 6.
What a tiring Day we had.
Coming Up Next : Beijing was Snowing ??
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