Thursday, October 15, 2009
Again, another great night! Lea is definitely a good sleeper. After another big breakfast, we were headed out for our tour of one of Nanchang's great temples.
The Pavilion of Prince Teng or Tengwang Pavilion is in the north west of the city on the east bank of the Gan River and is one of the Four Great Towers of China. It has been destroyed and rebuilt a total of 29 times since it was first built in 653 AD. It was last rebuilt in 1989 on the original site.
The Tengwang Pavilion was built by Li Yuanying, the younger brother of Emperor Taizong of Tang and uncle of Emperor Gaozong of Tang. In 652, he was assigned the governorship of Nanchang where the pavilion served as his townhouse. Twenty years later, the building was rebuilt by the new governor. Upon its completion, a group of local scholars gathered to write prose and poetry about the building. The most famous of these is the Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng by Wang Bo. This piece made the Tengwang Pavilion a household name in China. The building itself changed shape and function many times. The second to last reconstruction was in the Tongzhi era of the Qing Dynasty. That building was destroyed in October 1926 during the chaotic warlords era. The present Pavilion was completed on October 8, 1989, and is now a landmark of Nanchang.
The building is a reinforced concrete structure, but decorated in faux-Song Dynasty style. It is 57.5 meters tall and has nine stories. The building has a total floor area of 13,000 square meters (140,000 square feet). The building sits on a 39-foot tall concrete platform, which is supposed to symbolize the now-destroyed ancient city wall. A stainless steel tablet at the entrance is engraved with the calligraphy work of Mao Zedong. The building mainly serves as a tourist attraction now. Apart from beautiful decoration, inside the Pavilion there is a theater with period musical performances which we were able to watch while we were there. Thanks to my brothers for the Flip video camera, we can watch it again at home! There were also displays of reconstructed ancient instruments, furniture, restaurants and souvenir shops. The area has now become the center of Nanchang's antiques trade.
When we got back to the room, a tailor from one of Nanchang's clothiers came to our room and we picked out custom tailored traditional Chinese dresses for the girls. The dresses were beautiful and it was quite difficult to pick just one. They will make the dresses and have them ready for us on Friday.Today was also laundry day...and not a day too late. We had just run out of clean clothes this morning so at breakfast I was a bit self-conscious about wearing the same clothes I had on the day before. Whatcha gonna do? The clothes were all freshly laundered and individually packaged in cellophane bags. However, they were not pressed...so now I'm clean, but wrinkled. Oh well. The baby's clothes were laundered for no charge. That was nice.
Randy decided to give room service another shot tonight and ordered a burger. I'm not sure what it was that he got, but after two bites, he turned a slight shade of green and said, "I'm not sure what kind of animal this is, but I'm not eating it." The fries were good. I ordered the Cesar Salad...another winner. Sorry honey. Lea ate her dinner and then went off to sleep quite contently. I'm so diggin' this!
The Pavilion of Prince Teng or Tengwang Pavilion is in the north west of the city on the east bank of the Gan River and is one of the Four Great Towers of China. It has been destroyed and rebuilt a total of 29 times since it was first built in 653 AD. It was last rebuilt in 1989 on the original site.
The Tengwang Pavilion was built by Li Yuanying, the younger brother of Emperor Taizong of Tang and uncle of Emperor Gaozong of Tang. In 652, he was assigned the governorship of Nanchang where the pavilion served as his townhouse. Twenty years later, the building was rebuilt by the new governor. Upon its completion, a group of local scholars gathered to write prose and poetry about the building. The most famous of these is the Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng by Wang Bo. This piece made the Tengwang Pavilion a household name in China. The building itself changed shape and function many times. The second to last reconstruction was in the Tongzhi era of the Qing Dynasty. That building was destroyed in October 1926 during the chaotic warlords era. The present Pavilion was completed on October 8, 1989, and is now a landmark of Nanchang.
The building is a reinforced concrete structure, but decorated in faux-Song Dynasty style. It is 57.5 meters tall and has nine stories. The building has a total floor area of 13,000 square meters (140,000 square feet). The building sits on a 39-foot tall concrete platform, which is supposed to symbolize the now-destroyed ancient city wall. A stainless steel tablet at the entrance is engraved with the calligraphy work of Mao Zedong. The building mainly serves as a tourist attraction now. Apart from beautiful decoration, inside the Pavilion there is a theater with period musical performances which we were able to watch while we were there. Thanks to my brothers for the Flip video camera, we can watch it again at home! There were also displays of reconstructed ancient instruments, furniture, restaurants and souvenir shops. The area has now become the center of Nanchang's antiques trade.
When we got back to the room, a tailor from one of Nanchang's clothiers came to our room and we picked out custom tailored traditional Chinese dresses for the girls. The dresses were beautiful and it was quite difficult to pick just one. They will make the dresses and have them ready for us on Friday.Today was also laundry day...and not a day too late. We had just run out of clean clothes this morning so at breakfast I was a bit self-conscious about wearing the same clothes I had on the day before. Whatcha gonna do? The clothes were all freshly laundered and individually packaged in cellophane bags. However, they were not pressed...so now I'm clean, but wrinkled. Oh well. The baby's clothes were laundered for no charge. That was nice.
Randy decided to give room service another shot tonight and ordered a burger. I'm not sure what it was that he got, but after two bites, he turned a slight shade of green and said, "I'm not sure what kind of animal this is, but I'm not eating it." The fries were good. I ordered the Cesar Salad...another winner. Sorry honey. Lea ate her dinner and then went off to sleep quite contently. I'm so diggin' this!
Brings back such memories of our trip there in 2007! It was so hot then that it was hard to enjoy much, but the pavillion and People's Park were 2 of my favs!
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear Lea is doing so well!