A Museum at Chaosan

A Happy Frog in the Garden of a Museum in Chaosan, China

Beilin – The Forest of Stone Steles Museum at Xian China

As a calligrapher, I long wanted to visit Beilin in Xian, China to have a good look at the steles in the museum.

The museum has the biggest collection of steles in China.

Many of the steles are more than 1000 years old. They were first stored in a temple and re-grouped.

Some were damaged in the earthquake a few hundred years ago.

Yu Youren is one of the well known contemporary calligraphers who have contributed many steles to the museum.

However, I was not that impressed with the way they have presented the exhibits.

The lights were dim and the steles were too close together. It was difficult to read the characters on the tablets and I eventually gave up appreciating the characters on the steles.

So, I only took this picture of the main building of the Museum.

Rundale Palace in Latvia (3)

This is how the Palace is introduced in Wikipedia:

Rundāle Palace , formerly also Ruhenthal and Ruhendahl is one of the two major baroque palaces built for the Dukes of Courland  in what is now Latvia, the other being Jelgava Palace. The palace was built in two periods, from 1736 until 1740 and from 1764 until 1768. It is situated at Pilsrundāle, 12 km west of Bauska.

Once you stepped inside, your eyes are met by this grand palace building.

I like the yellow colour of the walls and the fine details of this Baroque architecture.

Again, you can see the lions perching from above.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Half Light ( Reflection )

The photo was taken at the Fortress Hill of Macau.

It shows part of the Museum alongside a reflecting pool.

You may wonder what the first image is; I have flipped the image so that the reflection is on top.

The second image is the original photo, with the reflection and the building dividing the photo almost into two equal halves.

I like the very clear details of the reflection.