Winter & Summer Palace, CCTV, NIS and more

I have been in Beijing for three weeks now, and it’s been amazing! My computer was on overload and wouldn’t upload anything this week. I had to buy an external hard drive, so I could delete several documents.

Since my last post, we visited the Summer Palace and Winter Palace. The Summer Palace or Yi he yuan ("Garden of Nurtured Harmony") is located in Beijing. Longevity Hill is located in the center of the Palace and is topped with three grand buildings: The Cloud-Dispelling Hall, the Temple of Buddhist Virtue, and the Sea of Wisdom Temple. In the center stands the Temple of Buddhist Virtue, which forms the focal point of the hill. Kunming Lake covers most of the area surrounding Longevity Hill. We were able to enjoy the lake with a rented four person boat. Kunming Lake was entirely man made and the excavated soil was used to build Longevity Hill. The Summer Palace is the largest imperial garden in China.

Here I am enjoying the Summer Palace with Fan Bu (aka "Bonnie"), one of our Mizzou grad students.
Our next stop was the great Yuan Ming Yuan Park (“Winter Palace”), which is the most magnificent garden in the history of China. When first build, the Winter Palace spanned a three-hundred-fifty hectare area with a fairyland of hills, ponds, lakes, ancient trees and palaces filled with one and half centuries of imperial treasure collections. However, it was tragically burned by the allied forces of the eight powers in 1860.

In the vast country of China, there are three construction works enjoying world-wide fame even today: The Great Wall, Stone Niche Temple of Dun Huan and Yuan Ming Yuan. Yuan Ming Yuan was the latest, yet the most ruined one.

For 139 years, Yuan Ming Yuan served for administration, vacation and living purposes for the six generations of emperors YongZheng, QianLong, JiaQing, DaoGuang and XianFeng in the Qing dynasty. The emperor and his wives would live in Yuan Ming Yuan after Chinese New Year until the end of autumn. Yuan Ming Yuan was the largest and most luxurious imperial garden, with a host of scenery sites representing different Chinese gardening styles.

After visiting Yuan Ming Yuan Park, we saw a modern opera performance at the Chang An Grand Theatre. The sound was quite difference than what we know as opera in the states. Take a look at the following video...

For tourists, the Chang An Grand Theatre in Beijing has English subtitles above the stage, which was very helpful. Each new character that walked onto stage blew me away with their incredible costumes, with such attention to detail. This Beijing opera house was originally constructed in 1937, and in 1996, reopened after a three-year renovation.

I also had the opportunity to visit one of China’s most famous late night talk shows on CCTV. There were five Mizzou students in attendance. We had to listen to the translations on headsets the entire time, which was a completely new experience for me. And, unfortunately, I think Chinese jokes are sometimes lost in translation everytime. The show was great and reminded me of Jay Leno in a way. In the photograph, we are pictured with the host.

Training has also begun, so I included the first photo I took inside the National Indoor Stadium where I’ll be working during the Olympic Games.





The following photo was also taken on the Olympic Green, and it symbolizes the Olympic torch runners.


Sarah