My Beijing Trip

What a wonderful city Beijing is!! The food, the sceneries, the people, the art, everything in Beijing is extraordinary!  I had so much fun just walking around the city, and every corner there's something so special about this historical place.  Although, they have torned down a lot of old villages and replaced them with tall commercial buildings, but somehow this place still remains its essence of being China's capitol city.

The only thing that really bugs me is the sand dunes.  Its horrible when it gets windy~  And please do not breathe through your mouth!  The sand will go right in...>.<  Nonetheless, let me show you some of the places I went:

I attended the CIGE fair, China International Gallery Exhibition.  Two of my friends were there exhibiting~ :)  Here are some of the artworks that I took pictures of:

 A surreal painting of tree-like human forms

Sculpture of chubby men trying to kill the little mouse.

Guess what this big head is?

Its a huge sculpture of a naked man crouching.  Its jaw dropping when I stand infront of it looking up!!  Amazing~

I also went to the 798 art district.  Its a rather large district full of galleries, cafes and shops.  Most of the galleries are built inside old factory buildings that use to be storage places for steel & other materials, or just factories where people worked in.  Very relaxing just to walk around there for one whole day.  They are in the process of fixing the roads there to make it look pretty for the Olympics :)

Me in between the chubby men sculpture :)

Inside one of the galleries in 798

Most of the galleries here are built inside of these old factory-like tombs.  You can still see the red writings from the communist China, when they praise and follow their leader Mao Ze Dong.

Besides checking out the Art scene in Beijing, I also went to climb the Great Wall!

I thought it was going to be easy to climb up those stairs.  But believe me, its actually harder than it looks!  Those stairs were in irregular shapes, some of them are really steep as well, and by the time I managed to climb to the third station up the hill, I was completely out of breath!  And I was light-headedl, when I tried to look down from above....@_@  But nonetheless the view was breath-taking :)

This is NOT a rubbish bin

Its actually a broken statue...poor statue *?*

Anywhere I go, I manage to meet some dogs :)  I went to a strawberry farm to pick out their strawberries, and they taste really good!  The guide told us that this is their last bunch of strawberries for this season~  And here are some dogs I met outside the farm.

A really skinny greyhound

I fed these two mutts some strawberries and they devoured it!  (The right one reminds me of Sophie a bit)

Look at the kid closely....what do you see?  Look at the floor infront of him...what do you see?  You see the crack in his pants?  Yup, there's a slit right down his pants!  I thought it was really funny, but in the old days thats how people do it for their kids.  Its much more convenient if they need to go pee or poo, they can just crouch down and GO.  Hahahahaha :D

I also went to a factory where people made enameled houseware, also known as Cloisonne, like vases, dishes, cups etc.  Its beautiful.  They use copper, because its soft enough to handle, then paint it, then burn it in the furnace. 

 Beautiful Cloisonne Vase :)

Here's the tomb of one of the King's in China.  Its 27feet down the ground!!  Its very chilly inside this tomb....eerie though while walking inside.

Went to the South Cathedral for my Sunday mass.  This area in the South side of Beijing use to be a persecution area, where people get their heads cut off!! >.<

I also went to see the Olympic stadiums, the arena for water sports etc etc.  I didn't get pictures but I got a video :)  And some videos of other places as well~  Will update soon :)

Enjoy!

Love,

Ama :)