Beijing day by day - 360VR Panoramas by Jook Leung - Jan 2008 (Updated - rev 5.11.08)
Stop seeing your world through a frame, you'll be missing a lot...click on a photo to explore
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Sweeping News Cleaning crews work to keep streets and sidewalks clean. A street vendor offer newspapers, sundries and chic magazines from the convenience of his multipurpose tricycle. Advertising signage abounds with even super size iPod billboards. |
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China Daily China Daily - Beijing, China - The Yinding Bridge, Xicheng district. Amid constant rebuilding, bricks are delivered by a carted tricycle. One of a series from my reading the news of the day series. |
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Beijing Traffic Crossing the wide streets of Beijing sometimes looks like controlled chaos where traffic lights are ignored or non-existent. Sometimes there is a traffic control officer. Even he does not stand in the middle of the street. http://360vr.com/China/Beijing/Dianmen_Dong_Dajie_traffic_12/ |
Old Beijing
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Liu Wen Ping in front of her siheyuan home. Her neighbor looks in from the alleyway of their hutong neighborhood. She is a friendly chatty lady who had something to say about the survival of their traditional homes against a tide of rapid redevelopment by a city rushing to modernize. To keep their drafty homes clean it is a combination of broom sweeping and mopping away the dust. |
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At an intersection of a Beijing neighborhood. It's late afternoon and residents of this neighborhood are returning home from work. A parent is picking up their children from school. The street intersection includes a market, school, restaurant and beauty shop along with a few neighborhood dogs. Utility poles for power lines are all over. Look up and see how power lines are just strung across on top of each other. |
Old Beijing - A walk down a Hutong main street
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Starting here... We walked down the main street of this hutong neighborhood of street merchants and store fronts where residents purchased their food and groceries. On this corner you see what the newer community out-houses look like. Look down and see how storm sewer openings like this one are used for disposing all kinds of garbage and waste. They can give off a sewer gas that scorches the lungs if you walk by too closely. |
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Hutong street vendors
My photographer friend Zhao Peng orders up a spicy fried egg sandwich for us. Meanwhile this dog (Pomeranian?) dutifully gives me its full attention. |
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Continuing south, the women stay warm on the sunny side of the street. One observation about food shopping during the Winter season is that there is less need for any refrigeration! We are leaving the hutong neighborhood and in view of the newer construction of buildings lining a city street. |
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We leave the boundaries of this hutong neighborhood and walk onto the big city streets of Beijing amid new construction of streets, buildings and modern transportation. Turn any corner and you'll witness the contrast of a rapidly modernizing Beijing with its slower old dynastic and glorious past. |
The Great Wall - JuYongGuan Pass
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JuYongGuan Great Wall is the nearest section of the Great Wall to Beijing - a little nearer than BaDaLing that it connects to; both these sections of Great Wall protect the same natural pass through the mountains through which now passes the Badaling Expressway and a railway line. The trek up the JuYongGuan Pass section of the Great Wall starts here. No climbing, the sign on the Wall proclaims. |
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JuYongGuan Pass from the Badaling Section of the Great Wall in Beijing Half way up I felt the urge to check out my cell phone signal. http://360vr.com/China/Beijing/JuYongGuan_GreatWall_3 |
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The Great Wall of China - Badaling Section and the JuYongGuan Pass Illuminated by the setting Sun, a glimpse of Jundu Mountain, Guan'gou gorge and the JuYongGuan Pass from a high-point watchtower on the Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing. Catch a view of the Sun setting over the JuYongGuan section of the Great Wall |
Tiananmen Square
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| Tiananmen Square - Gate of Heavenly Peace The largest of city squares is a daily gathering place of peoples from all across China, the most populous country in the world. A glimpse of China's youth marching through today's Tiananmen Square. |
The Old Summer Palace Ruins of the Yuanmingyuan
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| The Ruins of the Yuanmingyuan (the Garden of Perfection and Light) Imagine it was also called the 'garden of gardens' or the 'Versailles of the East' in Europe during its Qing Dynasty era. Yuanmingyuan was also an imperial museum that collected national treasures and cultural artifacts. Its collections were plundered by the Anglo-French in 1860 and the Garden was burned to the ground. |
Temple of Heaven (Tian Tan)
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| The Temple of Heaven, or Tian Tan The staircases are carved with dragons, phoenixes and cloud scrolls depicting the ascent of the dragon and the phoenix towards Heaven. The temple was built for the worship of heaven and for prayer of good harvests. |
Beijing Attractions
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The Forbidden City
The Forbidden City (Zijincheng) was the Chinese imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing
Dynasty and designated a World Heritage Site in 1987.
A Forbidden City Wishing Well
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| A frozen fountain collects coins tossed by visitors wishing to leave something of their visit to the Forbidden City behind. Think of all the other things that were thrown in through the ages. |
798 Art District graffiti
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| This industrial area of Soviet-era style factory buildings with above ground steam pipes has attracted a large Beijing artists community. Street shadows play on the very clean streets. |
Timezone 8 - 4 Jiuxianqiao Lu - 798 District
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| Lunch at Timezone 8 - a 360 photo session of self-portraits over some comfort food. Timezone 8 is an American food eatery and art book store in the 798 Art District of Beijing. |
Beijing Food
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Donganmen Night Market Exotic food stalls near WangFuJing This is where you will find strange street foods to eat Beijing style, on a skewer. Until you see it you can't believe it, low in fat and high in protein skewers of scorpions, millepedes, starfish, grasshoppers and beetles. They must be farm grown as everything looks to be plump and grade A. |
Beijing Attractions
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Beijing Transportation
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Beijing West Railway Station Opened in early 1996 after three years of construction, it is one of the largest railway stations in Asia. It was expanded in 2000 and is now able to handle 300,000 passengers per day. |
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Beijing West Railway Station Overlooking the main concourse, it is one of the largest railway stations in Asia. Due to the building being poorly constructed, it is expected to have a shortened life. Look up and you can see why this building has a leaky roof. |
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Beijing West Railway Station At Beijing's West Railway Station, two travelers stop to read the train schedule on an electronic board for their destinations West and South. |
Beijing Shopping at LuiLiChang XiJie
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Liulichang XiJie A popular 100 year old hutong street for antiques, calligraphy, paintings and cultural memorabilia mixed with some decidedly nice but fake old stuff. |
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Liulichang XiJie Everyone including the dog is curious about my method of taking pictures. Flash version: http://360vr.com/China/Beijing/LiuLiChang_4/index_swf.htm |
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Liulichang XiJie A street of beautiful shop-houses with Chinese chops, antiques, paintings on display. Liulichang is one of the oldest streets in Beijing. This is the spot to have your "name chop" made, buy calligraphy and Mao watches and buttons, jade trinkets, old coins and little stone carvings. Some shops are also tea houses where you can find yourself having a delightful tea ceremony. |
Beijing Shopping Misc
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Golden Palace Friendship Store Cloisonne factory A polishing room where Cloisonne pottery is being finished. Cloisonne is a very laborious decorative metalworking technique. Colored enamel laid down and baked between the raised ridges of wires that are bent to form the design of the pottery. The core of the pottery is formed of metal such as brass. |
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Golden Palace Friendship Store A tour bus stop on the way to the Great Wall that will having you shopping for fancy souvenirs at strictly tourist prices. |
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Golden Palace Friendship Store Cloisonne vases for sale, just 258,000 Yuan (37,000 USD). Sales associates who speak your language await to assist you at the Friendship Factory store. Lots of beautiful handcrafted treasures and trinkets to tempt your gift buying needs. |
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Observing a bit of Chinenglish on some local sportswear in a Beijing department store. The store manequins look to me like relics left over from the old Sino-Soviet era. |
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Here's a glimpse at what Chinese cell phones look like. The desirable ones are thick like a deck of cards with big screens. This family runs a business in a busy section of a shopping mart. A proud mom with her son in a one-child per family country. |
Misc
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