A couple more days in Beijing, staying near....
...a city waterway which once was a major source of water for the Beijing-Tainjin portion of the Grand Canal.
Zhuping, Sister #2, owns a furnished but unoccupied apartment...how nice for visiting relatives.
One way to reduce elevator costs, and cost of operations/repairs, is a double skip-stop method:
either you live on a floor with an exit door, or you get to walk up, or down, a floor to get to yours. We were on 7, how nice! But only one of the elevators in the string of 8 attached apartment blocks would being operating at a time, so sometimes it was a bit of a walk from it to our block.
either you live on a floor with an exit door, or you get to walk up, or down, a floor to get to yours. We were on 7, how nice! But only one of the elevators in the string of 8 attached apartment blocks would being operating at a time, so sometimes it was a bit of a walk from it to our block.
The entry door off the hall, with shoe shedding area, and bathroom...
...a rather typical three fixture design, with a curtain separating the "dry" area from the "wet" (no tub, just hand held shower).
Looking from the entry door into the eat-in kitchen...with Zhuping making tea. The door to the right leads to...
...the bedroom.
And a door to the left of the kitchen enters the living area with a multi-use space beyond....most often used for storage and clothes drying. All three major spaces have large south facing windows for passive solar heat gain. AC is high on the left wall, and mechanical heating is a hot water radiator on the wall behind the desk.
The newest of the subway lines (number 14 - there were only two lines when we lived there in 1995) goes way out to where an international garden expo was held in 2013.
It's subway station has appropriately decorated way-finding graphics.
The main building, of many buildings in the park, is the China Garden Museum, with ...
.... a Suzhou style garden under glass...
...and exterior garden elements as well.
Many provincial capitals erected gardens of their region.
Harbin's reflects its history of Russian occupation with skeleton of a cathedral, and European walks and walls.
Of course one which interested us a lot was Chongqing's, which used elements of the garden they designed for Seattle. Since Seattle does not have funds yet to further its construction, it was like a trip to the future to visit this one.
The entry gate, and ...
...the gazebo, with similar proportions and same name as the one in Seattle.
A large open air building on the pond, with a view of ...
...the hill climbing corridor are familiar from seeing the renderings for our yet un-built structures.
Another day was to walk Houhai, the "Back Lake" north of the Palace Museum. The area has been greatly spruced up, with....
...a new tower building in the park on the other side, which definitely is a ....
..."Garden of NO!" The only thing allowed is Surveillance Cameras!!
Departure day arrived, so one last breakfast on the streets...well the cooking was on the street, for eating inside or taking home.
A morning departure allowed for a good look at Terminal Three, here looking back at the double story parking with long skylights and grass covered roof. Opened in 2008, it was then the largest building in the world in terms of square footage on the ground. By 2014 Beijing Airport was the second-busiest in the world.
Passengers enter/exit the parking areas under a skylight, and into ....
...this check-in area. It's general illumination by day is only daylighting from skylights and glass walls, but of course there are many general illumination lights in the ceiling for use at night.
There is some pretty comfy seating near the departure gates, with glass walls ....
...which wrap the terminal on all sides.
It was off to Osaka and on to Kyoto, so please see their pages as well.
It was off to Osaka and on to Kyoto, so please see their pages as well.
