Another trip to China – april 2011

I’ve decided to do something a bit different this time. Former posts are more or less a chronological description of various trips and events. I shot more than 6000 pictures in China, and I believe the whole story is a bit too much – at least for this blog …

This time I’ve picked some of my favorite shots and give a brief background about each photo.

Hutong Man

We started our round trip in Beijing. As usual we did a few of the “tourist” things in additions to our meetings with Taiji Masters, Monks and other dignitaries. The Hutong streets are areas where some of the traditional courtyard residences are kept as they were – more or less. I shot this picture from a bicycle taxi on our sightseeing trip through the narrow alleys.

Taiji at the Temple of Heaven

This little lady came to watch us do some Taiji in the park surrounding The Temple of Heaven. We met with our friends from The Beijing Taiji Association an early morning. Our exchange with BTA usually attract a lot of spectators and this time was no exception.

Beijing Taiji Master

This lady is one of the masters we met at Temple of Heaven. I found her Taiji particularly powerful …

Wild Goose Pagoda

Our next stop was Xian. The picture is taken at the Wild Goose Pagoda and the monk is preparing some sort of ceremony. Xian is famous for the amazing Terracotta Warriors found in a field outside the city and we did of course visit that site as well. I chose not to include any pictures from there – at least not in this post.

Xian dance show

The lady in the picture is part of a re-enactment of typical entertainment at the emperor’s court in 200 – 300 BC. Local historians have gone through old scrolls, paintings and other things from the era and the show is based on their findings and adapted for tourist entertainment.

Bird in Chengdu Peoples Park

The last picture is from The Peoples Park in Chengdu in the Sichuan province. We enjoyed a cup of tea at a local tea house and met up with our friend from last year; Master Mei. While there this little guy got my attention with some very nice song.

That’s it for now. I may return to this trip later, but probably connected to the Norwegian Taiji Senter web site.