Tonight I am going to digress from the subjects of Chinese culture and photography and talk about something different.
So here we go: a good friend of ours have been running a successful garage door business since 1995. Like many entrepreneurs, he started out as a one-man operation, learning everything from scratch and building his business from ground-up. Through years of hard-work, keen business observation, and a good sense of humor, he brought the one-man operation to a company which employs more than 10 staff and counting. Recently, he wanted to broaden his online presence and thought of using our expertise in web design. Truth be told, Chris and I are NO web designers. We are photographers. Web related stuff often come second to photography. Nevertheless, we (especially Chris;-) ) took on the challenge and built a rather humble website for him. It’s far from pro results but we both think it’s a good starting point. And we hope our friend would agree with us. Here is a snapshot of the resulting home page for Town & Country Door LLC. If you ever need garage door repair or service, check it out, then share your experience with us. We are pretty sure you will be a happy customer if you aren’t one already.
If you ever get a chance to go to Beijing, be sure to check out Summer Palace, also known as Yihe Yuan among Chinese. Summer Palace was once served as a summer resort for Empress Dowager Cixi, ruling for 48 years from her husband’s death in 1861 to her own death in 1908.
Two major landscapes of Summer Palace were Longevity Hill and the Kunming Lake. But today I am going to post pictures about SuZhou Street which I consider a gem of Summer Palace even though it is less known or visited, even by the locals. SuZhou Street was built to replicate the canal streets commonly found in Jiangnan-a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
In Qing Dynasty, the royal families would visit the place to shop for fun because they could not visit the streets outside of the Forbidden City. There are a variety of shops (60+) including jewelry store, cafe, tea house, hat store. We also check out live performance of calligraphy on a Chinese scroll.
Unlike the main scenic sites near Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake, SuZhou Street is not as crowded. We spent some quality time there enjoying the ambiance of the place. Here are 2 shots taken at SuZhou Street.
During our “ascent” to the highest point of the section, we stopped at one of the watch towers to catch our breath,..well, umm, to take some pictures. Here you can see 2 rectangular blocks at the top of the structure. If you take a look at the first picture, you will notice there are 5 rectangular blocks on each side of the watch tower. This ought to give you a sense of scale how big the structure is.
I hardly had a chance to post anything when we were in China because we were either too busy sight-seeing with Heather and Michael, visiting families and friends, or sampling the delicious Chinese food that I had always dreamed about before going home. Fortunately, Chris took some photos along the way. So I will be posting a series of highlights from the trip in the following weeks. The first one in the series was taken on a cloudy and rainy day at the Badaling section of the Great Wall-the same one where President Obama visited recently.
We told Heather about how guards in the past lit torches on the watch tower to alert the next one in quick and successive fashion when enemies were near. She was totally fascinated by it. Before getting to the Great Wall, my parents worried about whether the kids could handle the steep slope on some of the sections. But it turned out those worries were totally unnecessary. Heather and Michael climbed with great enthusiasm and energy, leading the pack and constantly waving at us to urge us catch up. The rainy weather, misty clouds, and occasional chilly wind did not dampen their spirit at all.
We had a great time up there.
It’s been a while since I post something after we went to China and back. So here are some recent pictures of Heather, Michael and me. Four of us took a walk in our new neighborhood on a beautiful afternoon when fall’s glorious color was still on display. God really knows what he is doing when he created the color pallet of the world. We love our new place. Its surrounding is so park like.
by Diana
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