Land of the Dragon - Part 2
Next stop Xi'an - home of the terra cotta warriors
After a 5 and a half hour high speed train delight inland, we were in Xi'an.
It seemed to take hours before we ran out of high rise apartments consuming the horizon, in fact I don't think this stopped out here in the "country".
We passed through many cities and as we got closer to Xi'an we noticed lots of buildings with colourful lights on their facade, some with moving pictures, advertising possibly?
#photography #wideanglelens #chinatrip2019
Xi'an was stunning at night! Beautiful colourful lights and our motel was located in the heart of the old city Ming Dynasty walls, a quick stroll from this amazing Bell Tower marking the city centre.
In fact this motel was possibly the nicest motel I have ever stayed in!
Our flash motel: The Grand Noble
The Bell Tower
The city walls - would have loved more time in this city to hire a bike and navigate the city by the tops of the walls. These shots taken with my phone out the bus window, so not the best quality..
Then we were off to the factory where they make the warrior replicas. They are mostly made from moulds, just like the real ones were, and then final touches by hand.
Nothing prepares you for this entrance though!
Every one of them has a different facial expression
Just imagine uncovering these! At the back of the shed they are in the process of restoring figures and horses, they use cling wrap when first uncovered so the air doesn't dry them out too quickly and the clay won't crack.
We visited Zhengzhou next and had a free day to rest up and spent this at a sculpture garden and found a great pizza place where the owners spoke english and took photos with us and didn't want us to leave :)
It was great to not rush anywhere and watched a game of soccer, watched kids learning kung-fu and dancing, and saw a huge gathering of men playing cards in parks, with lots of commotion and laughter.
#photography #chinatrip2019
Thes next 3 images are from the museum in Zhengzhou
The pollution started to get quite bad by day 5.
The Lingering Gardens
A lot of housing in these communities do not have internal plumbing/space for bathrooms, so there are communal public bathrooms throughout the area, same with the Old Town of Hutong in Beijing. They are kept very clean and tidy, usually someone constantly on duty there.
The canal itself was also very clean, although the water was a murky green colour , it was clean and free from rubbish, and didn't smell.
The Meijiawu Tea Plantation
We then drove to our final destination: Shanghai
As per everywhere else, heaps of construction going on..
Plenty of elevated freeways, excuse the bus window pics here...
We went on the MagLev Train (yes short for magnetic leviating) which travelled at 431 km/hr from the Central Station area to Pudong airport in 7 minutes.
Its driverless.
These are the "tracks"
More levels of elevated freeways.
The French Quarter of Shanghai
The ERA acrobatic show in Shanghai
There were 8 motorbikes in this sphere at one stage 😬
The Shanghai skyline
The second tallest building in the world...to date, inspired by the upward flight of a dragons tail
We went to the observation deck of the Jin Mao Tower here bottom left of pic, 88 floors but still had to look a long way up at the Shanghai Tower (128 floors and 632m)
Looking down into the core of the Jin Mao tower into the motel section.
After a 5 and a half hour high speed train delight inland, we were in Xi'an.
It seemed to take hours before we ran out of high rise apartments consuming the horizon, in fact I don't think this stopped out here in the "country".
We passed through many cities and as we got closer to Xi'an we noticed lots of buildings with colourful lights on their facade, some with moving pictures, advertising possibly?
#photography #wideanglelens #chinatrip2019
Xi'an was stunning at night! Beautiful colourful lights and our motel was located in the heart of the old city Ming Dynasty walls, a quick stroll from this amazing Bell Tower marking the city centre.
In fact this motel was possibly the nicest motel I have ever stayed in!
Our flash motel: The Grand Noble
The Bell Tower
The city walls - would have loved more time in this city to hire a bike and navigate the city by the tops of the walls. These shots taken with my phone out the bus window, so not the best quality..
Travelling out to the warriors, miles and miles of apartment buildings and construction of more constantly everywhere. On route we passed the site where Chinas first emperor Qin Shihuang is supposedly buried in 210BC. They buried him underground and then built a mountain on top, still unexcavated to this day. He is supposedly surrounding by a river of poisonous mercury as well as his army of warriors facing his enemies and joined in his burial chamber with his concubines and all the possessions he will need in the afterlife.
Then we were off to the factory where they make the warrior replicas. They are mostly made from moulds, just like the real ones were, and then final touches by hand.
On arrival at the Terra Cotta Warriors we were accosted by many locals trying to sell us warrior replicas, then we walked about a kilometre through some beautiful gardens to the museums.
Peach blossoms
There are 4 halls here, and we had about 3 hours, could have easily spent the whole day here as there was not enough time to read everything.
Nothing prepares you for this entrance though!
Every one of them has a different facial expression
Just imagine uncovering these! At the back of the shed they are in the process of restoring figures and horses, they use cling wrap when first uncovered so the air doesn't dry them out too quickly and the clay won't crack.
The next hall was one smaller but deeper pit.
Hall 3 was huge and lots of restoration work happening, so much more to uncover.
The final hall had some displays of warriors with relics of paint still visible, as they were all painted initially, all 8000 of them, though not all uncovered as yet.
We visited Zhengzhou next and had a free day to rest up and spent this at a sculpture garden and found a great pizza place where the owners spoke english and took photos with us and didn't want us to leave :)
It was great to not rush anywhere and watched a game of soccer, watched kids learning kung-fu and dancing, and saw a huge gathering of men playing cards in parks, with lots of commotion and laughter.
#photography #chinatrip2019
Thes next 3 images are from the museum in Zhengzhou
The pollution started to get quite bad by day 5.
Suzhou is known as the "Venice of the East" and located just to the North of Shanghai.
Here we visited a silk factory, the Lingering Gardens, and a river cruise along the Grand Canal.
A few card games on the bar sector of the train
The Lingering Gardens
The Grand Canal - Suzhou
A lot of housing in these communities do not have internal plumbing/space for bathrooms, so there are communal public bathrooms throughout the area, same with the Old Town of Hutong in Beijing. They are kept very clean and tidy, usually someone constantly on duty there.
The canal itself was also very clean, although the water was a murky green colour , it was clean and free from rubbish, and didn't smell.
Next we visited Hangzhou, which was beautiful.
Pollution getting worse as we went further south.
The Meijiawu Tea Plantation
And then onto the West Lake, also beautiful.
As per everywhere else, heaps of construction going on..
Plenty of elevated freeways, excuse the bus window pics here...
We went on the MagLev Train (yes short for magnetic leviating) which travelled at 431 km/hr from the Central Station area to Pudong airport in 7 minutes.
Its driverless.
More levels of elevated freeways.
The French Quarter of Shanghai
The ERA acrobatic show in Shanghai
There were 8 motorbikes in this sphere at one stage 😬
The Shanghai skyline
We went to the observation deck of the Jin Mao Tower here bottom left of pic, 88 floors but still had to look a long way up at the Shanghai Tower (128 floors and 632m)
Shanghai World Financial Centre
or the "bottle opener"
The Bund financial sector - loads of colonial european style architecture.
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