Friday, November 1, 2013

Hengdian World Studios

Since all of my photos prior to October 2012 have been deleted by the sale and subsequent shutdown of Webshots, my photo host, I decided to post a flashback, once in a while . . .


October, 2010:   We went to China and found ourselves in Hengdian,  The Hollywood of China and home to the largest film studio in the World.  The tour took us to a reconstruction of the Qin Imperial Palace.  You can read more    HERE


It is a huge place and felt much larger than Tiananmen Square in Beijing.  They did a very good job on the reconstruction as the Palace looks like it is 2,000 years old


The place is massive and involves lots of walking.  There are no handicapped facilities


There are many gates, doorways and tunnels to walk through in order to get inside the Palace

Every morning they have an opening ceremony and display


and here we are observing the festivities



Having a double wall with a corridor between makes the Palace more secure as if you manage to scale the outside wall then you would have to face archers on the inside wall


Without modern elements in this photo, I thought that it conveyed a more of a historic look


Everywhere you turn you see another building.  You can see the scale of this place by how small we look and those walls are all made from rock and cement, made to look 2 centuries old


There are inlaid patterns in the walls and Dragons to protect the occupants


A couple of courtyards later you finally get to the living quarters


I would presume it is much busier here during the summer peak season.  Today we had room to breathe


These flying dragons may have been made from marble


I think this stair structure would make it easier for an Army to scale the walls


If you had the time there are a zillion stairs to climb . . .   It's been 3 years since we were there and it seems like a dream that never happened






6 comments:

  1. Interesting photos, Bob. It is a culture that I know next to nothing about. I'd like to visit one day, but that won't be enough to understand the cultural differences. Most places look way too crowded for my taste, I guess I'd rather prefer the vastness and emptiness of the North American landscape.

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  2. Cool pic,s Bob. I have not been to Asia, but have some friends that used to vacation there for two months of every year. But I think it was in Thailand.

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  3. Nice pictures and I enjoyed watching the short video. Did you find that you and Yvonne "stuck out" as westerners?

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  4. I have never been to China but had the chance to go to Kazakhstan in the mid 90's. What struck me was the friendly nature of the people, the sense that the mountains really did touch the sky and how time never seemed to move forward. Your photo's reminded me of that trip. Thank you for sharing. :)

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  5. Being able to look back at the pictures keeps the memories alive, that's why I always have a bulletin board full of summer to gaze upon at work.

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  6. Wow, three years already. I remember when you two went over there. I really enjoyed the pics and hearing about it. I'm with Sonja though - those crowds look like too much for me.

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