A Brief Interlude

Following Mark's recent posts on his trip to Vietnam, which can be viewed on his blog '1866 and All That' at http://stracmark.blogspot.com.au/ , I thought it might be a good idea to do the same with regard to our recent trip to China, if nothing else than to explain the recent lack of output on the miniature painting front of late.

A week and a half for the wife and daughter number three, commencing with five nights in Beijing and a visit to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City:

And then on to the Great Wall, which was far more impressive than I was expecting. The part we visited was quite steep and the steps were very uneven, so it took a lot more effort to climb than I was expecting:

It also made me wonder why they actually went to the effort to continue it in certain places, as the hills were so steep that I could not imagine an invading army being able to navigate the terrain, even in the absence of a wall:

We also visited the Ming tombs. They were very peaceful at this time of the year and we were quite happy to spend some time just sitting in the well-maintained gardens:



















Then on to the Summer Palace which was full of weeping willow trees, which was a little like walking through a scene on a piece of Spode pottery:

We also spent an afternoon shopping, although we weren't adventurous enough to load up on some of the multi-coloured delicacies that the locals appeared to enjoy:

Then on to Shanghai, which was every bit as Westernised as I had been lead to believe, but with its own unique flavour:

A visit to the zoo, and more shopping:

And a night cruise to round out the trip:

A very enjoyable trip, but it was great to get home and tuck into a nice medium rare rib fillet and it will probably be another month or so before we can look at another Chinese meal. I have managed to get back into a painting routine again however, and hope to have a few more posts up during October.