The GREAT Event and the Last of Beijing

The most anticipated attraction while in Beijing was, of course, The Great Wall of China!  The day we visited The Wall was a gorgeous, warm, blue-sky day.  It was perfect.

 

You can see we shed our coats pretty quickly! 

 

Being on the wall at such a historical place—one of the great man made wonders of the world—made me plenty camera happy.  I knew this was a dream come true for Paul and an amazing opportunity for all of us, so I made sure to document almost every step of the way.  So just sit back and enjoy the plethora of pictures.  :)

 

 

 

 

Jade did awesome walking the entire way along the wall, but when we got to this point she was pretty tired.  Cody and the kids stopped and took a rest where the umbrella is in the right of this picture.  Then Paul and I hiked that big incline in the back of the picture.  Cody had done it before, so he was sweet enough to let us experience it.

It. was. steep.  Embarrassed to admit I had to stop and rest a few times on the way up.  This is from the top looking down.  You can see Jade right in the center of the tower (near the umbrella) running around.  The incline doesn’t look that bad from this view, but believe me, it was.

More views from the top.

Conquerors of the wall!

  

Apparently the kids got bored waiting for us to come back down.  Despite their tired legs, they started up after us anyway. 

 

Being on the wall was a very, very cool experience! 

The next stop after The Great Wall was a cloisonné factory. I was expecting a large scale manufacturing plant full of machines. It was quite the opposite. The building was small, built in Chinese style with a courtyard in the middle. 

In each room surrounding the courtyard was a step in the cloisonné production process.  In the first room, men were creating and forming the vases out of copper. 

In the second room, a handful of women were using glue and tweezers to carefully apply the copper wiring to the vases to form the intricate designs.  The guide told us it takes about four days for one person to finish the design on one pot. 

 

In the next room, women were applying the colored enamel to the wired design. 

The enamel shrinks down every time it is fired, so it is done many times. I can’t remember exactly how many times the color is applied, but I think maybe around seven or more?  Notice the pot in the below right picture is not yet smooth, so it will have several more layers of enamel applied until it is flush with the copper wiring. 

  

Another room had cloisonné pictures being constructed in it. 

Here is a before and after of one of the pictures. 

 

After the enamel on the vase is completed, it is taken to the final room where the vase is polished with stones. 

 

The entire process for one vase takes weeks!  I was absolutely blown away by this ancient technique!  After seeing the skill and craftsmanship that goes into creating a cloisonné vase, I couldn’t resist taking one home with me.  Notice the detail of all the copper wires in the design.  Lovely.

 

Our final sightseeing spot in Beijing was the Summer Palace.  The Summer Palace was built in 1750 and was where the most important political and diplomatic activities outside the Forbidden City Center took place.

 

The grounds had lots of statues of animals, each with a different meaning.  Below left is a unicorn (or at least that’s the translation from Chinese to English).  Below right is a phoenix, which is representative of the Empress. 

 

I really fell in love with these cranes.  I think the guide said they represent longevity because of their long graceful legs and body.  Aren’t they cool?!

The Summer Palace is home to the longest outside corridor in the world.

One of the emperors had artists paint scenes from places throughout China, so he could enjoy the beauty of southern China as he walked the grounds of the palace. 

 

This is the largest boat made completely out of marble.  Of course, it is stationary. 

Here are some other picturesque scenes from our walk around the grounds of the Summer Palace.