I started walking around noon and it is now about 4:00 pm. I wandered through a bunch of side streets, generally aiming to end up at the hill north of the Forbidden City. I overshot that quite a bit and popped out by the Drum and Bell Towers. This turned out quite nice as I had just enough time to tour both towers.
First I had to beat off all the rickshaw drivers/tour offeror's with a stick. One of them I had to confront before he would back off. This is the second time in China that someone wouldn't take the first "polite" 10 "no thanks" as a hint. Then they grab your arm, then they block your way. That's when I get pissed off.
The drum tower is quite an incredible structure. The access stairs were either designed by the "Chinese Special Design Institue for Vertical Access Structures" using super special Chinese design number twenty-three, or they were designed in Medieval times for easy defence. Anyway I wouldn't want to slip as I was coming down these stairs.
A view of the bell tower. The bell is huge (7 metres tall), and is 25 cm (yes 10") thick.
In the bell tower as the sun is setting. Pretty cold up there. My camera was balanced on this puny little ledge because I was using the self timer. Unfortunately it didn't fall off and bean that rickshaw driver.
I put a video of the drums being beat on my YouTube site: <http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=GolfSteve55
And a shot of a local mode of transport. In Luoyang I saw one of these loaded down with 12 refrigerators!
Just North of the Drum and Bell Tower is an area with a large pond and a number of restaurants. The pond was party frozen over and was being used for skating. There were some pretty ingenious devices on the pond...the sled (poled along), the bicycle skate, and regular skates.
I pity the guys who have to write local bylaws in China. I know Calgary has this bylaw also, but it's been a while since anyone tried to get around this law in Prince's Island Park.
No comments:
Post a Comment