Longqingxia

At PiB we usually have a class trip every weekend, and today we went to the Lonqingxia gorge. It is located about 2 hours outside Beijing, a big tourist attraction, offering stunning views of towering mountains and placid waters (courtesy of the man made dam). The entrance of the park is marked by this large dragon tunnel, which surprisingly enough, contains a series of escalators that whisk you up to the water level.
A group of our extremely charming second year teachers, who are some of the best in the country!


There were a number of pretty fab activities at the gorge, including boat rides. Here I am, basking in the serenity of the surroundings. You can ascend the mountain either by foot or by gondola. Most of the PiB students overestimated their physical capabilities and hoofed it to the top. The cliffs rise up quite sharply, so I was quite relieved that I could take the gondola on the way down. Below is a view from the top.
Apart from the beautiful trails and boat rides, there were lots of other interesting activities. Can you make out what is happening in the above picture? No? Okay, so look below. . .
In my Chinese art history classes, we learned that Chinese landscape painting relies heavily on engaging multiple perspectives, which is to say that instead of looking at a landscape from a single vantage point, the artist moves around and combines views of the landscape from all angles. Above is the most famous Chinese landscape painting of all time, "Travelers Among Mountains and Streams," by the Song dynasty artist (11th century), Fan Kuan.
After seeing the landscape today though. . . um. . . I don't know. . . it seems pretty "realistic" to me.
This is a Buddhist temple atop one of the peaks of the gorge. Mountains are holy places in most religions, and the temple was very peaceful.

The bus ride over was really fun! I sat on a bus, which was mostly filled with teachers, and they taught us some really pretty (and simple) Chinese songs.

The entryway to the park--all of the lanterns made me think of one of the scenes from Seth's movie where the children release white lanterns into the sky.

And this is probably one of the weirdest things I saw today: children playing in plastic bubbles. What is even weirder? Parents who drop their children playing in bubbles into the reservoir!