Through the eye of an archway!
I must say I have always loved taking photos of doorways but I was having a look at my photos from my time in China and realised I clearly have a love of archways also, so I thought I would show some of my favourites from all around the country. The Great Wall of China has lovely views from its many archways and they all located at different parts of the Wall; I think they are definitely some of my favourites.
All throughout the seasons you can find different views through an archway; snow laden parks in winter and people out enjoying themselves along the walkways of the Summer Palace.
Monks can be seen through archways as well as a gardener along one of the corridors of the Forbidden City.
There are branches falling over sandstone archways as well as glass archways on modern buildings in western China.
There are archways on bridges in eastern China to hold the hundreds of thousands of visitors and a view of the beginning of the Ming Tombs from another.
Repeating archways; some not for walking through at the Summer Palace in Chengde; others making it easy for visitors to reach the Lama Temple in Beijing.
And then there are those archways that are known all throughout the world because they belong to the Forbidden City where the huge portrait of Chairman Mao sits.
Some are just pretty…
And others are not as pretty but still very interesting…
All in all, some great archways leading to wonderful places in a fabulous country.
And finally me on a bike tour with a background of archways at the Belltower in Beijing…
Qianmen is a lovely street to walk along prior to dining at Capital M as it has beautiful buildings/tea houses/shops and cafes on either side and the majority have been refurbished to resemble the style of the late Qing Dynasty. The gate is situated to the south of Tian’anmen Square and once guarded the southern entry into the inner city.
The grounds comprise many buildings and whilst it only took a little while to walk through, I am glad I got to visit – it’s always nice to see something so old even though some parts are refurbished. There are also many trees within the grounds which are really beautiful and incredibly old.
Over the next day and a half, we went for a walks exploring Macau and saw the old Macau and the new. There is lots to see and do and I bought some lovely ‘antiques’ from a small shop.
The gorge is located at the mouth of the Yanqing Old City River which is about eighty-five kilometres from Beijing. 
We departed on a beautiful day in the middle of summer and arrived an hour or so later. 
There were fabulous views of the Badaling section of the Great Wall along the way and I was lucky to take a few snaps out of the bus window and some when we arrived.
This area is famous for its gorge but the first sight you see when you arrive is the Longqing Dam. It’s inset between hills and is around seventy metres high. To get to the top of the dam you can either use the escalator inside the body of an artificial dragon; yep thats right…inside the body of a dragon. Or you can walk up some steep steps, after which you can walk along the top of the valley …I chose the easy option and entered the dragon’s mouth to access the escalator to reach the ferry behind the dam. 
From the dam, you can take a small cruise boat for a short ride through the gorge. The scenery is spectacular. It is a combination of rivers and steep cliffs and bare limestone mountains in many different shapes. Truly beautiful!! The boat stops at several places and you can get off and do a bit of hiking..I didn’t!! I stayed on the boat for the whole ride, as we did a small hike from the top of the cable car station which to me was more than enough.
We then took a toboggan ride to reach the exit. There is also an option to go bungee jumping near the dam, not for me!!
Our next stop was to the Puning Temple which is literally the ‘Temple of Universal Peace’ and is a Buddhist temple complex also built in the Qing dynasty.
There is an interesting history on the firecracker; in ancient China bamboo stems were filled with gunpowder and burnt to create small explosions and these were used to drive away evil spirits. This method has now evolved into the use of firecrackers during the festive season where firecrackers are usually strung on a long fused string to be hung down and where each firecracker is rolled up in red papers with gunpowder in its core.
Whilst it’s a very noisy time, it’s a time every year I really looked forward to – I loved to see the Chinese celebrating and lighting fireworks…plus because I did not travel within China during this period, Beijing was very quiet and streets were pretty empty with all the migrant workers returning home to their loved ones – so it became a time to get around very easily without much traffic.
Mount Shangfang is the largest national forest park in Northern China and ‘heavenly ladders’ lead up to the peak where, along the way you can see relics of temples in the mountains. The park covers an area of 3.293 million square metres and is an offshoot of the Yan Mountains which is a major mountain range in China.
However I must say it was now mid afternoon so we decided to take the cable car to the top (and I was feeling a bit tired to even consider walking up the thousands of steps). But Oh My Goodness, the cable car was so (so) high off the ground.
But the views from the cable car were worth the terrifying ride.
