My first stop in China was Xi’an, the first capital city of a united China (Han Dynasty). Then called Chang-an, Xi’an is now a rapidly growing metropolis of 9 million people. Most of my time there was spent at the Chinese Academy of Science’s Institute of Earth Environment. But in the middle of my three-week stay, I was treated to a six-day excursion south through the Qinling Mountans to Chengdu (Sichuan Province), then back north to Xi’an via Baoji and Yang Ling. So these 30-odd photos include not only Xi’an itself but also scenes from the road trip.
The original city is ringed by a 13-km wall, which I described in more detail here. This first half-dozen photos show (counterclockwise from top left) two views of the city wall and its surrounding moat in the evening, the Tang Welcome Light Show, restaurants inside the wall, and lanterns ringing the top of the wall (click on any thumbnail to start a slide show, and then look for a button at the lower right of each image to see a larger version).
Although the scale of the city within the wall just borders on the rational, outside of it construction and development is occurring at a breakneck pace (top left). The contrast of old and new is nowhere more evident than from within the various parks and temples scattered around the city. I talk more about these green spaces here (click on any thumbnail to start a slide show, and then look for a button at the lower right of each image to see a larger version).
The parks themselves provide opportunities for group activities and solitary contemplation. The first four pictures are from the reconstructed Sui Dynasty Green Dragon Temple (a.k.a. Temple of Inspiration). The next four are from the Xi’an Botanic Garden, and the last in the lower left is from the reconstructed Tang Dynasty Xing Qing Garden (click on any thumbnail to start a slide show, and then look for a button at the lower right of each image to see a larger version).
The field excursion was all about pandas; you can read more about them in the three-part blog posting (parts I, II, III). The photo in the lower right, which accompanies the panda blog part II, is the only one on this page that was post-processed in Irfan-View (on top of the standard Lightroom post-processing) to get the zoom-motion effect (click on any thumbnail to start a slide show, and then look for a button at the lower right of each image to see a larger version).
And of course no visit to Xi’an would be complete without scenes from the Terra Cotta Army and the associated Tomb of Qingshihuang, the first Emperor of a unified China. Of the hundreds of photos I took on my visit there, five seemed good enough to share here (click on any thumbnail to start a slide show, and then look for a button at the lower right of each image to see a larger version).
All photographs are © 2016 by Aaron M. Ellison, all rights reserved. For permission to use or reproduce any of these images, or to purchase a print, please contact me.
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