September 09, 2006

Zhili Governor's Office...

I decided to learn a bit more about Baoding's history, so today I went to the old Zhili Provincial Governor's Office (直隶总督署) which is now a museum in the heart of Baoding.

Baoding used to be the provincial capital and the original governor's office was built here during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The current building though was rebuilt during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and used from 1730 to 1911. It was cool to see some the traditional Chinese architecture and to get a better idea of the history of the country (try comparing it to a similar building in Canada?).
After wandering through the complex of over 100 rooms, I was a bit hungry and decided to test my newly firmed up innards against some of the street food. I wanted to buy a fried chive bread but the lady in line beside me insisted that she buy it for me. Doing the polite thing I argued a bit, then let her buy me lunch.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

love those pics, any more?

Stephen said...

I do. I'm planning on putting them up on my Yahoo photo page today.