Beijing China

This past week I got to spend a few days in Beijing China.  Beijing city has a population of 20 million and is at an elevation of 44 meters (143 feet) above sea level.  The city itself is defined by having 5 rings of  highways around the city.  It is a fairly new city with lots of building still going on.  From talking to the locals they said the city can’t grow out anymore so now it is growing up.  They are tearing down 3 and 4 story building and putting up 20 and 30 story buildings in its place.  The streets are crowded like rush hour travel all day and late into the evening every day.  They told me that only one in four people in Beijing owns a car and you can only get one by getting in a lottery and hope they draw your name for the year. At the end of the day it took us about 30 minutes just to get a cab to get back to the hotel and there are a lot of cabs on the road they were just all full. 

 This pictures is of the new China Central Television Headquarters building which they also call the pants building because it looks like pants.

Most of the time I was working but I did get to do a few things.  One was that I got to go out and have a dinner of Peking duck.  Peking Duck is a famous duck dish from Beijing that has been prepared since the imperial era, and is now considered one of China's national foods.

The dish is prized for the thin, crisp skin, with authentic versions of the dish serving mostly the skin and little meat, sliced in front of the diners by the cook. Ducks bred specially for the dish are slaughtered after 65 days and seasoned before being roasted in a closed or hung oven. The meat is eaten with pancakes, spring onions, and hoisin sauce or sweet bean sauce.  It was very good and highly recommended.

The center of the city is where the ancient site of the Forbidden City is.  The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost 500 years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government. Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings.  Unfortunately my camera wasn’t working well and I wasn’t able to take many pictures.  While there I did get to see the great grandson of one of the emperors who is now a professor at a Beijing University but volunteers his time to do art work at the palace to help raise money for restorations.

The great wall of China was about 50 miles out of town in the hills. The site was called Balaling and is one of the most visited section of the Great Wall of China.  The portion of the wall running through the site was built during the Ming Dynasty, along with a military outpost reflecting the location's strategic importance. The highest point of Badaling approximately 1,015 meters (3,330 ft) above sea level and I climbed to the top of it.  From the starting point it was at least a couple thousand steps to get to the top.  It took me about an hour and a half to get to the top and I took quite a few breaks to enjoy the views (ok to catch my breath).

Prague

A few weeks ago I decided to go to Prague and see what it had to offer.  It was only a 4 hour and 15 minute drive from my place and we had a four day weekend.  When I got there I walked around and did another one of the hop on hop off bus tours.  Below are some of the sights I saw.

Dancing house –  Originally named Fred and Ginger (after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers - the house resembles a pair of dancers .  It was built in 1996.

Charles Bridge - is a famous historic bridge that crosses the Vltava river. Its construction started in 1357 and finished in the beginning of the 15th century. The bridge is 516 meters long and nearly 10 meters wide, resting on 16 arches shielded by ice guards. It is protected by three bridge towers, two of them on the Lesser Quarter (where the castle is) side and the third one on the Old Town side. The Old Town bridge tower is often considered to be one of the most astonishing civil gothic-style buildings in the world. The bridge is decorated by a continuous alley of 30 statues and statuaries, most of them baroque-style, originally erected around 1700 but now all replaced by replicas.  At night Charles Bridge is a quiet place, but during the day it changes its face into a very busy venue with painters, owners of kiosks, and vendors alongside numerous tourists crossing the bridge.

These are the two towers in the Lessor Quarters

This is the tower on the Old Town side of the Charles Bridge

This is the Charles Bridge taken from the top of the Old Town Tower.

This is the statue of St. John of Nepomuk, he was thrown from the bridge into the river where he drowned. In modern times it has become traditional to touch the bridge here; this is held to bring good fortune and to ensure that the visitor will return to the city of Prague.

Prague Castle is the biggest castle in the world at about 570 metres in length and an average of about 130 metres wide.  It is actually made up of many building, churches, gardens, and museuems.  It is still used today as the offices of the government.  The start of the castle started in 870 and wasn’t really completed with all the buildings until 1920.  The say it wasn’t the whole time they were working on it.  As an example the St. Wenceslas Chapel was started in 1344 and finished in 1929.  They said there would sometimes be 40 years that they wouldn’t work on it because they didn’t have any money.  Makes some of my renovations seem pretty quick.  If you look at the pictures you can see one side of church is darker or black and the other is lighter.   This is due from the aging of the sandstone that was used to construct it.



Entrance to the Castle. They have the changing of the guards every hour.



St. Wenceslas Chapel

Inside of St. Wenceslas Chapel

Inside of St. Wenceslas Chapel

The front of St. Wenceslas Chapel at night all light up.

The old town square is where a lot of people hung out and had some interesting buildings and sights.  One such site was the astronomical clock.  At the hour it rang and had a skeleton ringing the bells to remind you that your one hour closer to death.  The clock was constructed in 1490 by a  clockmaster and ledged  has it that the clockmaker was blinded on the order of the Prague Councillors so that he could not repeat his work; in turn, he broke down the clock by throwing himself in it and dying, and no one was able to repair it for the next hundred years.

The National museum was founded 1818 at present the National Museum houses almost 14 million items from the area of natural history, history, arts, music and librarianship, located in tens of buildings.  This was closed due to renovation….for the next 5 years…  Looks like nothing gets complete fast in this country.  The tour guide said it will really be closer to 10 years before it’s completed.

In front of the National museum is the Wenceslas Square one of the main city squares and the center of the business and cultural communities in the New Town of Prague. Many historical events occurred there, and it is a traditional setting for demonstrations, celebrations, and other public gatherings.  

Television Tower is a unique transmitter tower built between 1985 and 1992 it was originally built to block the free Europe television from the communist but it wasn’t finished in time and the collapse of communism happened before it was done.  In 2000 an artist added some crawling babies on it to help it look better.  It is currently listed as #2 on the World's Ugliest Buildings list.

London

London itself is a very nice place to visit.  I don’t know if maybe I was just missing hearing the English language.  While there I did the bus tour that take you to all the hot spots.  This one had a boat river cruise also.   The main attractions to London was to see Buckingham Palace.  This is where the Queen works Monday through Friday.  I got to see the changing of the Guards a couple times.  Once was in the evening when there was no one around.  It didn’t have the big calibration with the band, and all the formalities but it was still neat to see.  The next day I went to the main one and there were tons of people there to see it.  

The Westminster Abbey is the church where all the royals get crowned to be king or queen.  Most recently it is where Prince William and Kate got married.  

The Tower Bridge is what I thought was London Bridge but it isn’t.  Actually London Bridge is just a plane bridge and despite popular belief its not falling down.  HaHa.    

The Tower of London or “Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress” is the original home of the Royal Families dating back to 1066. It has been used as an armory, a prison, a treasury, the home of the Royal Mint, a public records office, and the home of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom.  

Big Ben and the House of Parliament is where the government of England works.  

London Stock Exchange

The London Eye, located on the River Thanes, was built to calibrate the new century in 2000 and was suppose to be torn down after 5 years t but it has been a big hit and all day long I saw lines to get on it. They say there are approximately 3.5 million people ride it a year.   It is 443 feet tall, is continuous moving, and it takes 30 minutes to travel one revolution around it.

The London Cabs are very unique and something to see.  The only strange thing is they along with all the rest of the people drive on the wrong side of the road.

Trip to London Part 1

I decided seeing I have never been to England to take a trip over there on one of the four day weekends that we have in Germany.   I figure it’s a much shorter trip from Germany than it is from the United States.  I flew into London and that is where I stayed.  I took a bus tour on my first full day there.  It was a guided tour that went to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and to the town of Bath.  This tour left at 8 am and from where I was staying it was a hour and twenty journey to the point of departure.  Once there we loaded up on a double decker bus and headed off to Windsor Castle.  This was about a 45 minute bus ride and the guide we had really enjoyed his work and talked almost the whole time.  He was very informative and had lots of stories some relevant and some just because I think he liked to talk.  The castle quite interesting especially seeing it is still used as the weekend getaway for the queen.  (for more pictures and description go to Windsor Castle ) 

We toured us around the yard of the castle.  It was very nice and we learned that if the royal flag was flying that meant the queen was on the grounds.  There are two living areas in the castle one is where the queen lives and the other is where the public gets to see this is called the state rooms.   The first area you get to go into was the doll house room.  This doll house was a replica of the castle.  They made it to such an exact that it had running water in the faucets, gas combustion engines in the cars.  They didn’t allow any pictures to be taken in this area but it was definitely something to see.  Its hard  to imagine a doll house with all those things but yes it was there. (for more description and picture see the following: Doll house  1, Doll House 2 )

The next area that we got to see was the  State rooms.  There were at least 50 rooms that  had tons of pictures, antiques, and guns.  They had rooms and rooms full of guns that were displayed in an artwork arrangement.  It was something to see. ( See the link for pictures of the state rooms:   State Room Pictures )

Then we got back on the bus and took another 45 minute drive to a pub for lunch.  I got to sit with the rest of the singles and shared stories of what we were doing and why we were there.  It was interesting to hear the stories.  One was from Australia, one from Philippines, one from US except his folks were from Taiwan, and me.  Then from there it was only a 10 minute ride to Stonehenge. (For information about it click on the link Stonehenge )  This is in a big open field with a bunch or rock in it.  It was suprising to see how many people were actually there.  At the site as part of your admission you were given a cell phone type devise that would give you the history of it and theories of what it was used for.  The big thing that got me is that it was build way before the invention of the wheel but the rock had to be hauld some 250 miles to this point and lifted into place.  They said some of the rocks weighed 50 tons.

 This is what they think it looked like way back when.

Then the last stop we made was the town of Bath.  This town had a river running through it with a waterfall and a bridge.  It had an old church and it was most famous for its hot spring baths that were used from the romans days.  We didn’t get to tour the baths (For information on the town of Bath see this link Bath

Then was for the ride home.  It was a 2 ½ hour bus ride through the England county.  In all this tour took about 11 hours.  I think the guide talked for all time on the way back as well.  Then I went for a walk in London to see some of the sights with the lights on it.  The it was off to the “tube” (subway) and walked back to my hotel for the night.  I think I actually got back to the hotel about 12:30 at night.  Very long fun filled day.

Heidelberg

A few Sunday’s ago I took a hour drive to a town called Heidelberg..  I found this destination from a book that I got called “Daytrips in Germany: 50 one day adventures”.  This book is pretty good because it tells you about the city history, what the highlights are, and a walking tour map.  This town has a market square, a couple of churches, a castle, and a bridge.  The walk started out by walking past the oldest University in Germany it dates back to 1686.  There have been expansions but it was still a very small school.  There are stories about the school jail.  This is where the school rowdies who got to spend anywhere from one to five weeks on bread and water for their misdeeds.  Actually serving time was considered a mark of honor and given the cleverness of the student the water usually turned out to be beer.  As the story is told.

  I walked by a few churches that were nice but not to the grand scale as I have seen on other trips but this one called the church of the Holy Ghost.  It was built in the 15^th century and made it through all the wars.  The interesting fact about this church is that from 1705 to 1936 it was both a protestant and catholic church with the two faiths being separated by a wall.  On the outside of the church you can see the merchant’s stalls that have been in use since the medieval days.

  I got to the base of the hill that the castle was on and had two choices, go up a long winding trail or go up the stairs.  I picked the stairs.  When I finally got to the top I saw on the side of the steps that they had a number and I was on 315.  Not to bad but defiantly a workout.  The castle had a great view of the city and had some interesting things to see from the courtyard to the world’s largest wine cast.

I walked down the winding trail and walked along the Neckar river to one of the old bridges. 

I am always surprised to see how many people are out walking around on a Sunday when there are no shops open but there are bakeries and coffee shops that are open.