So you think you can build a wall? Here’s how the pros did it.
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Tonight’s feature presentation: great wall of china
In November of 2012, my partner and I travelled to Hong Kong, and from there branched out to Vietnam and Beijing. Our travels were mostly with the company of a few members of his family, who live over there. From Beijing, we took a day trip to the Great Wall of China, to a spot about 90 minutes outside the city.
At the link just above you can read the history of the Great Wall. It’s actually a succession of four major walls, spanning some 4,000 miles, and built and re-built over the years from 208 BC to the 1600s.
The section that we visited has been developed as a major tourist site complete with parking lots, restaurants, gift shops, and all the trappings you would expect where tourists pass through. We were there early on a cold November day.
Several flags of various nations are on display when major tour groups are going through. Being Canadian, I was happy to see my flag there; I’m quite sure they didn’t know I was coming, and didn’t fly the Maple Leaf just for me.
I’m also fairly certain that the parking lots were not part of the original installation in the Qin Dynasty.
Here’s what you would call the typical view of the wall. Following the mountain terrain, it is quite steep in places. There are periodic outposts in strategic places along the wall.
From a different orientation, you start to get the scope of this structure. Imagine this being repeated for thousands of miles.
Here’s a view looking in the opposite direction.
The surrounding scenery is spectacular, even at this time of year where the summer colors have faded.
Building this could not have been easy.
It’s a popular spot to visit.
Here you can get some idea of the steepness of the steps in some segments. That’s just some random person standing on the steps. The handrails were also not original equipment.
It can literally be a struggle to climb the steps, either up or down. Some people get down on hands and knees and crawl. With my crappy knees, I didn’t go far up this segment.
I could spent all day looking at the architecture at this spot along the wall. Some of it is fairly new, some ancient.
Simply beautiful.
I did quite a few shots in black & white, focusing on the lines and patterns of the architecture. Here’s a couple.
Build a big beautiful wall? Ha! It’s been done.
bonus photos: hot pot meal
If you’re a watcher of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown series on CNN, you may know from the promos for tonight’s episode that Tony takes chef Eric Ripert to China’s Sichuan (there are various spellings) province. Among the dishes they sample are Hot Pot. Now there are many variations of Hot Pot, and in Sichuan they can be particularly spicy.
Following our Great Wall visit, on the way back to our Beijing hotel, we stopped at a pre-arranged restaurant near Beijing for a Hot Pot meal. Following, a few shots of that meal in progress:
top comments for sunday october 16, 2016
From Yasuragi:
Excellent comment from icallbs in Denise Oliver Velez’s front page piece “The black and brown firewall against Trump is being joined by more white women”.
And this comment, from newreign in the same diary.
From pixxer:
An excellent image from Crashing Vor (notably the last line) in a wonderful first diary by QueenBee56 “An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton, or Why I am Changing Teams” reminds us of how political discourse works best in this country.
From ZenTrainer:
A comment from the candidate himself Stephen P Tryon For Congress, in his own diary “Utah Candidate Says Thank You!”. He's not thanking me, he's thanking Daily Kos! We really do make a difference.
top mojo for saturday october 15, 2016
top photos for saturday october 15, 2016