Sleepless Travels Reloaded

I’m rapidly losing interest in blogging the China photos. And 90% why is because my photos are craptaculatively mediocre.

Top left: Pavilion of Something or Other. The characters were so complex and esoteric that there was even an explanation, in Chinese, for the Chinese. It’s located in the palace complex that was built for the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong Emperor on his retirement as Emperor (I wonder if he had to sit for an exit interview?). He’s a pretty artistically accomplished man so his garden was pretty speccy.

In olden times scholars would hold poem/wine parties where they would compete in composing poems while floating cups of wine down a stream. It’s a pretty common image - there are a number of paintings depicting such parties.

This pavilion is meant to be an analogy of that. The windy recessed floor could be filled up with water, or wine as the case may be. Then everyone in the party could take turns composing poetry etc. Wouldn’t like to be the one to clean that up. I didn’t see a drain on hand anywhere.

Top right: Really really big flower. It was about 20cm in diameter, one flower head per stalk. No dupping.

Bottom left and right: Both possibly taken in Qianlong’s garden. Note photo on left: the tree is slanting so far to the right that a pole is needed to support it or else it would collapse. Gardeners often puposely bend trees at unnatural angles for artistic effect. I personally think the effect is spoiled somewhat by having to put up with walking around huge supportive poles.

Left: One of the ponds/stone bridges in the inner palace section. The main garden sections are all in the inner palace area, which is where the women are kept. Garden manuals praise the colour of stagnant ponds variously as for example “jade green” and “milky green”.

Center: Another tortured tree.

Right: Another feature in the inner palace garden. This mini grotto features a smallish pavilion built on top of a mound of stones. The entrance is that dark bit at the centre of the photo behind the woman in beige posing for a photo. The rock structure isn’t stable enough for the thousands of tourists who woul like to trudge through so it’s sealed off. I think one of the many palace intrigues that was doubtless occurring at the time culminated in a concubine dying up there.

In other news, I’ve totally rearranged my room because I’m running out of space D:
Cue had a 20% off sale for members only, which discount could be taken off the price of already discounted items. I got 2 dresses and a skirt. I was going to return one dress at a later stage because I couldn’t pick between them.

The salesgirl was all “oh, you’ll try them out at home and you’ll decide to keep them”.
Me (thinking): Yeah right whatever.

It turns out I will keep both of them -shakes fist-