Day 187 of 365 Day Challenge

Went for a walk along my road to see if I could get a good photo for today. The mosquitoes seem to be also gone but so do all the other insects. Only one solitary butterfly which was well out of reach. So took loads of photos of leaves and hoped that one would be good. Many of the trees have been growing nobbly little round balls the past month and now I am wondering if they are some sort of wild fig as they are taking on a fig like shape but I admit to being very ignorant when it comes to most plants. So here is today's picture, taken with Hipstamatic, tuned in Snapseed, manipulated in iColorama and then finally grunge in Snapseed.

Day 186 of 365 Day Challenge

Walking through the streets of Beijing we came across this dog and I couldn't  resist using him for today's photo. Taken with Hipstamatic and changed in Snapseed.

Day 185 of 365 Day Challenge

Went to see the Beijing Olympic site today. Here is the famous main stadium known as the Bird's Nest.

Day 184 of 365 Day Challenge

Today was the highlight of my trip to Beijing. A 5 hour hike along the Great Wall. We had an exceptional guide with us, Peter, who spoke excellent English and was very knowledgeable and interesting.

We started off with a steep 30-40 minute climb to the wall in a wooded area and I wondered at that point whether I had been a little ambitious in my choice of hike. However once we were at the top, the rest was very manageable. The beauty of starting where we did was that we saw the older unrestored parts of the wall and there was only one other small group of people. From here we walked towards the restored areas of the wall where there were quite a few tourists. It was all downhill or steps down and when I saw the number of steps you needed to climb to get to the point we were, I was very glad we had done it the other way around!

It was an absolutely glorious day and we could see for miles which is very fortunate when the smog can often result in no view at all. At the end our guide gave us a usb stick of photos he had taken of us along the way, a fantastic memory of our trip. 

I had so many great shots it was difficult to choose today's photo but thought I would show you a piece of the unrestored wall which you don't get to see plus a few others.

Unrestored area of the wall.

The line in the distance is the continuation of the wall.

Some parts of the wall are almost vertical and without steps. This restored area now has steps but as you can see the horizon is fairly straight so you can get a feel for the angle of the wall. As you can imagine ordinary concrete wouldn't have worked so the concrete they used was a mixture containing sticky rice of all things which prevented the bricks from sliding.

Restored area of the wall.

Day 183 of 365 Day Challenge

I had a day in Beijing on my own so did a little research and discovered an area called the 798 Art Zone. Just up my street. So after a fair amount of subway changing and a taxi ride I finally arrived at 798. Well, it is a pretty big area of art studios, art exhibitions, coffee shops, craft shops and an old industrial area called D-Park which you can wander around.

I've got to tell you that I roamed around for over 3 hours and hardly scratched the surface. You need a whole day to really do it justice. Some fascinating art often with a Chinese slant. There was also a steampunk exhibition on with steampunk art from around the world. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was disappointed that I didn't nearly get through all the zones. I would love to feature a piece of art as my main photo for the day but not sure of copyright so today's photo is taken in the D-Park and I have included another of the D-Park, an outside sculpture and graffiti.

Day 182 of 365 Day Challenge

Beijing was not what I expected. Although parts of the city have high rise buildings much of it does not. Buildings around the Forbidden City are not allowed to be high rise. My husband and I spent the day with a tour guide seeing Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. It really is worth going with a guide otherwise you can spend a lot of time in queues not understanding how the entrances work.

It was difficult to choose a photo for today because I had so many. In the end, I combined two photos which I see as being quintessential Beijing/Chinese. The main photo is of part of the Forbidden City. Note the crowds. The second is an old fashioned looking Chinese man.

Apps: Hipstamatic, Retouch, Superimpose, Snapseed, iColorama