Ah, the part of me that is into cleaning and organizing is having a ball with undiscovered-in-years stuff! As part of my goal of getting all my slides to CD, this last bunch that went off are all of the area around the Ming Tombs outside of Beijing. I think we spent the morning at a museum and then took the bus ride to the tombs and had a packaged picnic lunch before touring the tombs. It was a glorious late October day, and autumn was in full color in the countryside. I actually have very few pictures of inside the tombs themselves, because, after all, they were tombs. I was taken with the stories and the countryside, so that’s what I focused on. The main story is that the tombs were discovered by accident by workers digging in the area. As you will be able to see from the pictures, this was a major tourist 30 years ago, and I’m sure it still is. The Clay Army hadn’t been discovered yet, which gives me another good reason to go back to China someday.

The statue I am standing by is one of many that lined the road to the tombs. These in themselves were gorgeous works of art. If I had been sketching at the time, I don’t think you would have gotten me away from them.

This next picture shows the line of statues – look under the elephant’s trunk. Keep in mind they lined both sides of the road.

Notice the similarity of drab colors, except among foreigners. The green in front is the Chinese Army visiting. This is the entrance to the tombs.

The gorgeous autumn countryside.

Again, old meets new.