China Tour April 30 - May 2, 2017

(Cloisonne factory Part II)
 This is a process which began during the Yuan Dynasty in Beijing.  Originally Cloisonne was made in blue and only for the emperor. There are 6-7 steps to complete the process. It begins with a copper pot which is hand hammered, then copper wire is glued on, paint is applied in the spaces the copper wire has made, it is then kiln heated, cooled and polished. It maybe painted, heated and polished several times.

Great Wall of China
The construction of the Great Wall began around 656 B.C. The Chinese worked on the Great Wall for over 1700 years until it was over 3700 miles long. It is now listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

We climbed Fortress 7, 8 and 9. The stairs were very uneven, from 1 to 4 bricks deep. We were given 1.5 hours to walk up and down the stairs. Very tough work but a true highlight of the trip!

Many photos were taken by Chinese tourists of us today. One asked me how old I was. When I told her she said, “Oh, average.” Love this gal!

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 “If you walk the Great Wall you are a hero.”

Summer Palace

(Again I'm glad to have read Pearl Buck's book Imperial Woman: The Story of the Last Empress of China before the trip!)

During the summer season the Imperial Family would move to the beautiful and much cooler Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was divided into four parts: the court area, front hill area, rear hill area and lake area. As you enter the court area there is this stone which was for a long life.

Almost parallel to the stone is the the Imperial Dragon or Qilin. He has horns of a deer, whiskers of a carp, hooves of an elk, tail of a loin and scales of a fish. He faces outward to guard the palace.

 

The corridor goes from the Summer Palace to the Pagoda so the empress could walk there without getting wet should there be a rain shower.

 

The entire lake was dug out by Chinese peasants bucket by bucket and the dirt was hauled and dumped on land, slowly building up into a hill - the hill where the pagoda is now built upon, amazing!

This ended our few days in Beijing. If our trip had ended at this point it would have been a wonderful trip but early the next morning we flew to Xi'an and new adventures. 

Xi'an was a small town with a population of four thousand until they found the soldiers, now it has a population of 400,000.

Terra-cotta Army

This amazing site was discovered in 1974 by a farmer digging a well on his land. To date over 10,000 figures have been found.

Each soldier has his own individual traits and it is thought actual solders were used as models.  These soldiers were armed and standing next to horses and chariots. The tallest is six foot two inches and the shortest is two feet. The upper half of the solder is hollow but from the mid section down it is solid. Soldiers have a top knot, archers are kneeling, 

It wasn't until they found the second pit in 1976 archaeologists realized the terra-cotta soldiers had been painted and as they uncovered the unharmed soldiers the paint oxidized and fell off the figures.  Only sixty-nine were taken and the rest covered back up until there is a way to excavate without harming them.

All soldiers are restored with only the exact pieces found in the pits. Most are complete but occasionally there will be a chard missing here or there. This is an on going process and many feel there are many more soldiers waiting to be discovered along the four mile route to the Emperor's tomb. 

When archaeologists  entered the newly discovered Emperor's tomb they found a river running completely around the enclosed area. It was beautiful and shimmered against the light. They realized the shimmering river was a river of mercury. The tomb was again closed and won't be opened until there is a way to do so safely.

On our way back to the hotel we noticed a very interesting way of running phone lines!

The next day it was another early morning plane ride to Chongquing.