Wolfgang's photos

After a short time waiting in the queue we got contact to other people in the line. The boy was wearing the cap without knowing that "Deutschland" is "Germany".

Every moment, a group marching neatly dressed in uniformed gardiers, who are sent to their respective watch-posts at important stalls, as here at the entrance of the Chinese National Museum.

Thousands of visitors waiting in front of the entrance door to go in the National Museum in Beijing. Waiting time more than one hour. Every body will be checked by a personal scanner, every pocket, every bag. But it really was worth it.

The famous "Supreme Ultimate Boxing" Tai chi is very common not only in Beijing. Everywhere in the parks of Beijing or on the roadside people doing exercise in training his health benefits.

This ancient garden Beihai, with over 1,000 years' history, is not only a classic combination of the grandiosity of the northern gardens and the refinement of the southern gardens in China, but also a n amazing place to spend a rest on the lakeside.

eihai literally means "Northern Sea". There are also corresponding Central (Zhonghai) and Southern (Nanhai) "Seas". Its as with many of Chinese imperial gardens, was built to imitate renowned scenic spots and architecture from various regions of China.The structures and scenes in the Beihai Park are described as masterpieces of gardening technique that reflects the style and the superb architectural skill and richness of traditional Chinese garden art.

Also called the Bird's Nest was the stadium for the Olympic Games in 2008. The stadium was a joint venture among architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron of Switzerland and inspirated by the famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. The rainy and misty weather made a walk around a bit unpleasant.

Seems of meeting a group of Blue Berets but are tourists. Most of the tourists in Beijing came from the own country of China. Groups of twenty to thirty dressed with caps in same colour and a guide carrying a banderol shouting informations and commandos.

Grafitti on the floor in the park of the Summer Palace. A Chinese passenger paints characters with water soluble color.

A snap shoot in the garden of the Summer Palace in Beijing where Chinese tourists walk around the park lake.

Situated in the Haidian District northwest of Beijing, the Summer Palace garden is 15 kilometers from the downtown area. Being the largest and most well-preserved royal park in China, it greatly influences Chinese horticulture and landscape with its famous natural views and cultural interests, which also has long been recognized as "The Museum of Royal Gardens".

Beijing has over 300 parks to discover. One of them certainly is the public Beijing zoo where we spent the whole afternoon.

The Giant Panda already is the national animal in China and can get visited in the Beijing zoo. But ther are some living in the wild forest. In mountains of southwestern China lives about 1,000 of these black-and-white relatives of bears survive in the wild.

The gateway to the 13 imperial tombs from the Ming Dynasty. The UNESCO explained this with five criteria: the Ming graves were a masterpiece of the integration of architecture and the natural environment; They represented the development of earlier art forms in the Ming period. They are excellent testimonies of a cultural and architectural tradition that has shaped this region of the world for over 500 years; The link between architecture and nature forms a unique cultural landscape; The graves illustrated the world view, the faith and the geomantic principles of feudal China

Most of the tourists we met on the Great Wall were coming from other parts of China, Taiwan too. This young visitors, I assume students, were communicating with us in perfect English.

The watchtowers did not distribute in evenly distance. Some of them were very close to each other with a distance of less than half a mile; some of them were far away to each other with a distance of several miles. The shapes of the towers were also various. Most of them were square, while some were round or rectangular. And the construction materials of them were different, either. The materials were depending on the local material supplies.

A snap shoot for the family album. Chinese twin girls sitting in a battlement on the wall.

Watchtowers are the key part of the military construction. Very close to each other, brick towers in square are built atop the Wall. A famous general Qi Jiguang in Ming Dynasty had ever mentioned the specifications and structure of the watchtower in his On-the-Spot Record of Military Training. It describes the watchtowers are about 36 meters wide and10 to 12 meters high. They built the tower at a distance of every 10 or 100 footsteps at the crucial parts, and every 52, 140 or 200 footsteps at other parts. Neighboring watchtowers can support and reinforce each other during the war.