Travel To Asia

the yu gardens

the yu gardens are a beautiful example of a traditional chinese garden, right in the middle of shanghai. surrounding the gardens are a bunch of shops selling souvenirs and arts and crafts. there is also a tea house outside the garden. inside is an amazingly tranquil beautiful space that i love walking around in. i was lucky enough to get a guided tour of the gardens the first time i visited, and if you can arrange this, it will really enhance your appreciation of the gardens. in addition, there are artisans who are skilled in various traditional arts--most very painstaking and detailed. you can watch them practice their craft and then purchase the artwork from them. really interesting.

Hangzhou

Hangzhou is a city in China, very famous for the beauty of its West Lake. This city was the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, and once was the largest city of the world, with 1 million inhabitants, even Marco Polo after passing through it said :"beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world". You definitely have to visit the West Lake and its many scenic areas, but also the temples and pagodas, as well as the beautiful gardens and forest are more than worthy to visit.

Guilin

Guilin in China was a strong communist stronghold during the revolution, that now has several western-style hotels and tourists as well as local tourists. Its very close to a number of picturesque limestone mountains and formations, and taking a boat trip down the Li River is an experience you should keep in mind!

Tian´anmen Square

Tian´anmen Square (Door of heavenly Peace) in Peking was built and designed for the capitol's urbanist plan, in 1949, becoming the symbol of the New China. With this construction it was pretended to create a giant esplanade to hold massive political marches, like the ones hold at the Red Square in Moscow. The Tian´anmen Square is the largest square of the world. Built following the south-north axis of the Forbidden City , in the middle there´s an obelisk, the Monument to the Town Heroes, of 38 meter tall, and with an inscription realized by president Mao Zedong, that reads: The Town Heroes are immortal. At this square, occurred the 1989 Revolt of Tian´anmen Square, also known as the Tian´anmen Massacre.

Mogao Grottoes

The Mogao Caves or Mogao Grottoes are a system of 492 temples located near Dunhuang in Gansu province. Along with Longmen and Yungang, they are the three mos famous ancient sculptural sites of China. The paintings on the walls were a form of meditation for the Buddhist monks, representations of their quest to enlightenment and a way to transmit their stories and beliefs to those who were illiterate. This caves became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial

The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a memorial located in Taipei City, China,for the late President Chiang Kai-shek. It shares the grounds of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park with the National Concert Hall and National Theater and is one of the city's defining landmarks. There are several ponds and parks throughout the memorial, with well-maintained lawns, trees, and walking pathways. The ponds are filled with the colorful goldfish that are also found in many sacred places and temples throughout Taiwan.

Longmen Grottoes

These are caves, located 12km south of Luoyang, in the province of Henan.
The grottoes depict Buddhist subjects, and the extend along the mountains of Xiangshan and Longmenshan, and are one of the 3 most famous ancient sculptural sites in China. There are 2.345 caves and niches, 2.800 inscriptions, 43 pagodas and more than 1.000 Buddhist images. The construction of the grottoes began in 493 AD and the area was listed by the UNESCO as World Heritage in the year 2000.

Temple of Heaven

The Temple of Heaven is a complex of Taoist buildings located in southeastern Beijing, China. The construction of this complex began in 1420, and was visited by all the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties after that date. Although it is considered a Taoist temple, the worship of Heaven exists long before Taoism. The park grounds incorporate 3 main areas, The Earthly Mount, properly the Altar, an empty platform of 3 levels of marble; The House of Heavenly Lord, a circular building with only 1 level; and The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, a triple gabled circular building, with 3 levels of marble stones, used to pray for good harvests.

The Silk Road

The Silk Road or Silk Route is the series of interconnected routes that crosses Asia from China to Europe. The Caravans traveled the Silk Road for over 2000 years, and Chinese silk was reaching Rome before the time of Christ. Marco Polo followed this route, reaching China via Khotan and started his homeward journey with a ship, on the Maritime Silk Road from Quanzhou to Iran. The main route from China starts in Xian, goes West to Lanzhou and splits to avoid the Kalamakan desert into 2 roads, North via Korla and South via Khotan. The routes rejoin at Kashgar in the extreme West of China and goes into Central Asia, over a pass to Kyrgyzstan, then toward Tashkent, Samarkand and Bokhara, Southwest through Turkmenistan and into Iran, West to Baghdad, Damascus and Istanbul. It also had alternate routes, but the mentioned was the main one.

The Forbidden City

Located in the middle of Beijing, very near from the Tian´anmen Square, The Forbidden City was the Chinese Imperial Palace during the Qing and mid Ming Dynasties. Covering 720.000 m2, it has 800 buildings and over 8.000 rooms. The city is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world and was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 as the "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties". The Imperial Palace area is located directly to the north of Tian´anmen Square and is accessible from the square via Tian´anmen Gate. It is surrounded by a large area called the Imperial City. With a rectangular shape, surrounded by a six meter deep moat and a ten meter high wall, includes five halls, seventeen palaces, and numerous other buildings.