When I Don't Blog ...

When I don't blog, people still end up coming to the blog.  This no longer surprises me. 

It used to surprise me -- a few years ago before I understood that a great deal of blog traffic is driven by searches. 

But, when I have been absent, or when I have blogged infrequently, I sometimes check to see what blog posts have been getting read.  Often, among the blog entries is the Castle is a Gem post.  I don't quite know why.  But this time, it appears my travels to, and photos from China are being found more than other posts.  This is great -- but I wonder how it happened.

Oh, and you will see another post which seems to show up quite frequently on the list.  That Dinosaur Attack WIN entry.

Anyway, I hope to get back to posting more regularly in the near future.  But meanwhile, some people still seem to be finding my words -- and photos -- here.

Glad to have them!

Favorite Foto Friday - Golden Ball - InterContinental Hangzhou

On one of the clearer days I had in China, I got to walk past a building which reminded me of a Golden Snitch.  I mean, look at it!





Apparently it's a hotel! (I did not stay there, obviously!)

Hangzhou China - West Lake - Photos

Hangzhou, China is a popular tourist destination, and I was fortunate enough to be shown around the city by a couple of young local people.  I have only shared a couple of photos from Hangzhou before -- in my blog about smog in China.  Today, here are some of the better photos I took while touring the famous West Lake, as well as one shot from an evening in an older part of the city.

Meng Wei and I at the entrance to the West Lake area.


Bai Causeway - There are two causeways, with water on each side, on the lake. I am pretty confident this is a photo of Bai Causeway.


Floating Boat - well, of course boats float. But with the smog, it sorta looks like this boat is in the air, not in the water.


Fall Colors - it was December. The colors were so pretty. Hard to believe autumn lasts into December!


The Causeway, from the water.


More Colors - obscured by smog, but still lovely.


The Buddha - seen in the older part of Hangzhou.


Me with the Buddha - proof that I was there.

Favorite Foto Friday - Great Wall From Below

It was difficult to choose just one photo from my trip to the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu, but I think this might be it.

Smog in China

I was recently in China for an extended period of time.  While there, I got to experience first-hand the smog which is such a problem for many of the cities in that nation.  This post documents, with photos, the situation.  I stayed in one hotel in Hangzhou for several days, so I could take photos of almost the same view each of several days.  I will show you progressively worse views, and then I'll show you a photo from the day I was able to tour West Lake, one of the biggest tourist spots in all of China.  First, here is the least smoggy day:




Notice that there is a bit of haze. Views of buildings in the background are obviously obscured. This was probably the best air I saw during my visit in Hangzhou. And, to be fair, it was never this good in my days in Hefei, my days in Nanjing, or my day in Wuhan. But here is photo 2, and we can see it's worse.



The buildings which were hazy in the first photo are gone in this photo. But let's move on to photo 3.



Remember, when we were walking around outside, we were breathing that air. But I'm not quite done. One more.



That was the worst I saw, I think. Now, photo 2 is the same day as this photo. This one was in the morning, so later in the day, some of the smog had dispersed.

I mentioned that I would show you a photo from my tour of West Lake. I am going to post several photos from that trip. I really enjoyed the sightseeing walk we took around West Lake, and then the trip on the boat around the lake. I can only imagine what it would look like on a day without smog. Anyway, from the boat, here is a photo of the shore.



I wish I could tell you that the view was obscured by FOG, but it was smog. Now, most of the time it didn't quite look that bad to my eye. I got used to it. So I tried to correct for the smog to get a photo that looks more like what I thought I was seeing. Here's the result.



It was December 7, and the people in southeastern China were still getting to enjoy fall colors. The patches of lotus plants are protected by little fences, so they can come alive again in the spring. Again, as I mentioned, this is more like what I felt I was seeing. There were no clouds in the sky that day, but we could not tell that from down at West Lake. But the smog was thick and heavy.

Someday I would love to return to West Lake to see all of these views without smog. I am told this was a particularly bad day, and I believe it. I have seen bad days in Beijing, but on the trips I took to Beijing this fall, I mostly saw days similar to photo 1 -- hints of smog, but mostly very nice. But when people talk about the smog in China, now you have an idea what they mean.

Update: I just saw this video on weather.com, which has images from NASA and a description of how bad the measured Air Quality Index has been.  FYI, if you're interested:
http://www.weather.com/video/how-is-anyone-able-to-breathe-here-42208

Temple of Heaven - Beijing, China

On the same day we visited the Forbidden City, we also went to one of the other most famous sites in Beijing - the Temple of Heaven. 

I'm not going to make you wait.  Here is the Temple of Heaven building.  Beautiful, no?



Again, it was difficult to get close to many of the Temple buildings.



But I could get close at some points, and the interiors were impressive. Here's an altar area.



As you would expect, the decorations were amazing. I loved this ceiling. It's going to be a background on my laptop at some point.



Much like at the Forbidden City, the wooden roof and wall structure was also well decorated.



I have not yet shown you one of the doors which were all over in these ancient sites. Big red doors with nine rows of nine golden decorative "balls."



One of the features of the Temple of Heaven was an area which documented the ceremony conducted by the Emperor and his very large retinue. Here is one of the signs which explained one of the many steps in the ceremony, which took an entire day.



And finally, because I can't resist it, another of those decorative series of animals lining the roof corner.



I hope it's clear to you -- if you ever get to travel to Beijing, there are many amazing things to see. Don't miss the chance, if you have it.

Hongluo Temple - Beijing China

On the same day we visited the Great Wall of China, we stopped at Hongluo Temple in Beijing.



This is the entrance to the Temple grounds.  See how the decorations look similar to those in the Forbidden City, though they are a different color because the Forbidden City was for the Emperor, as were the decorations.



Unlike, for example, a cathedral, while the Temple building is the central structure on the site, the grounds around the Temple are where people spend their time.  The paths into the temple are "walled" with bamboo, protecting living bamboo.



But the paths eventually open up to an area which is really like a wooded park with paths.  Near the beginning of those paths, visitors can buy brightly colored ribbons and tie them to things in the park as a "sacrifice" or request for good favor or an answer to a prayer.




It was not very easy, actually, to see the inside of the Temple.   The "park service" which runs the place has barriers set up just inside the entrances so people can't get too close.  I'm sure this protection is necessary, because if people could touch things, they were touching things.  I did not get particularly close, because there were people who were clearly there to worship.  You can see a bit of a large golden Buddha in this photo.  This was the temple, proper.



Also on the paths are various statues.  One of the cool areas has a large set of Buddhas.  They are cool, if a little spooky.  I imagined myself walking these paths at night, and the thought of being surrounded by these statues was kind of unsettling.  But they are fun to look at, and I love their red capes.



Probably the most striking thing in the whole Temple Grounds was this large Buddha near the end of the walk through the paths.  I didn't take a photo of anyone near it, trying to be respectful.  It is about 20-feet tall.



Again, I thank my host, Jun Feng, who added this to our trip when he realized we would not spend the whole day at the Great Wall.  It was something few other people probably see when visiting Beijing (I don't think I saw any other Westerners there, though it was quite well attended by Chinese people.) 

I still have trouble reconciling the popularity of this with the anti-religious nature of the government in China, but it certainly is nice to know the government did not -- for example -- destroy these sites when the Communists took control.  And by the popularity of the site, it's clear many people appreciate that within China, as well.

Forbidden City - Beijing China

On Sunday, November 10, my colleague and team member Shuang Hong took me to visit a couple of the most famous places in Beijing.  Of course, the Sunday prior I was able to see the Great Wall (and a temple I might post about if I get the time.)  Amazingly, both Sundays were clear, which made for a great chance to see the sites, as well as to get some good photos.

Well, it turns out a large part of the Beijing population agreed with us that it was a beautiful day for a visit to the Forbidden City.  Crowds were inevitable.



Just outside the entrance, a couple of lions stood guard. These stylized lions are common images in China. I believe they, along with the dragon, were symbols associated with emperors.



Inside the walls, there are 9999.5 buildings, but most of them are not available for viewing. The central structures are, though. And people flocked to them.



One of the types of artifacts on display are these vessels. There was a vessel for each province, and whoever controlled the vessel controlled the province. The Emperor, therefor, had all such vessels displayed in the Forbidden City.



The Forbidden City is full of amazingly detailed work -- artwork on the buildings among it. This has been restored, and the bright colors are typical of Chinese decoration.



One of my favorite details is the string of animals on the corners of roofs.



I have many photos, of course, but I will stop with this one, which shows the tops of two of the special buildings on site.

Great Wall of China at Mutianyu

On Sunday, November 3, I was fortunate enough to take a trip to the Great Wall of China with a couple of colleagues.  The specific location was the Mutianyu site. 

The weather was amazing.  Cool, but sunny.  There was almost no haze from the smog which is typical in the Beijing area, because the wind had come in overnight and moved it away.  And, as you will see from the photos, the autumn colors were still very much in force in the area.

I was given the choice of whether to walk up the trail to the wall, or take a cable car.  I chose the cable car, knowing that my body was not likely to be able to handle as much climbing as my younger friends.




Speaking of my friends, here is a photo of Jim and Jun Feng, in the cable car. We were together for the whole day and had a great time.



From the bottom, we could see the Great Wall above us. What a sight!



Once we reached the top, we got many wonderful views of the Wall, but we also were treated to views of the nearby mountains. Spectacular!



Once at the top of the cable car route, we still had a long way to climb to reach the edge of the restored Wall. Here are a couple of views of where we were headed.



Hmmm, OK, that doesn't show enough of the entire trek. Here's a more complete shot. We were going to walk very close to the top of what you can see in this shot.



That first shot might not show it, but there was a LOT of UP!



No, really. It was UP!



But I did make it to the top, stopping quite a bit along the way to catch my breath.



You can get a feel for how steep the final climb was by noticing the person in front of me on the way down again.



The walk back down to the bottom had some amazingly beautiful views, as well.



It was a wonderful time. I have been to the Great Wall of China twice now. The magnitude of this structure is awe-inspiring. I thank my friend and colleague, Jun Feng, once more for hosting me on this trip.