We started the day with a visit to Beijing Zoo where
we concentrated on viewing the Pandas which are one of my favourite animals. We
did a lot of walking today with visits to the Summer Palace, Pearl Cultivating
Field and Market, lunch, the Old Summer Palace, and finished off, at sunset, at
Tiananmen Square. It was then a short walk back to the hotel.
The Beijing Zoo was founded in 1906 during the late Qing dynasty, and is the
oldest zoo in China and oldest public park in northern China. The
zoo is also a center of zoological research that studies and breeds rare
animals from various continents. The zoo occupies an area of 89 hectares,
including 5.6 hectares of lakes and ponds. The zoo and its aquarium have over
450 species of land animals and over 500 species of marine animals; in all, it
is home to 14,500 animals.
The Summer
Palace is a vast ensemble of lakes, gardens and
palaces. It was an imperial garden in the Qing dynasty. Mainly dominated
by Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake, it covers an expanse of 2.9 km2,
three-quarters of which is water. Longevity Hill is about 60m high and has many
buildings positioned in sequence. The front hill is rich with splendid halls
and pavilions, while the back hill, in sharp contrast, is quiet with natural
beauty. The central Kunming Lake, covering 2.2 km2, was entirely
man-made and the excavated soil was used to build Longevity Hill. In December
1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage
List.
Banquet Boat
Ferry
Summer Palace
The Old Summer Palace, known in Chinese as 'Gardens of Perfect Brightness', and
originally called the Imperial Gardens, was a complex of palaces and
gardens in present-day Haidian District, Beijing. Constructed
throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Old Summer Palace was the
main imperial residence and where they handled state affairs; the Forbidden
City was used for formal ceremonies. Widely perceived as the pinnacle work
of Chinese imperial garden and palace design, the Old Summer Palace was known
for its extensive collection of gardens, its building architecture and numerous
art and historical treasures.
Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square is a city square in the centre
of Beijing, named after the Tiananmen ('Gate of Heavenly Peace') located to its north, separating it from the Forbidden City. The square contains the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China in the square on October 1, 1949; the anniversary of this event is still observed there. Tiananmen Square is within the top ten largest city squares in the world (440,500 m2). It has great cultural significance as it was the site of several important events in Chinese history. Outside China, the square is best known for the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests that ended with a military crackdown, which is also known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre or June Fourth Massacre.
Tian'anmen
The Great Hall of the People
Monument to the People's Heroes
National Museum of China
Smoggy sunset over Tian'anmen Square
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