#asia travel
Huxinting Tea House in Shanghai, China
Your visit in Shanghai is not complete unless you have checked out Huxinting Tea House. It was only in 1855 when this place was converted to a teahouse. It happened during the reign of Qing Dynasty’s Emperor Xianfeng.
The first name for Huxinting Tea House was Yeshi. Eventually, it became popular as Wanzai. Soon, it was again renamed as Mid-lake Pavilion Teahouse. The main reason why it got its latter name is because of the location of this teahouse.
The Huxinting Tea House is a great place to visit. The mere façade of this place is fascinating. Before you get to the main pavilion, there is an attention-grabbing bridge which is constructed with a zig-zag style. According to traditional Chinese beliefs, this zig-zag design is not only for aesthetic appeal. It is also important for keeping the evil spirits from getting into the pavilion.
This place is very sophisticated that when Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II visited Shanghai, she also spent some time in the Huxinting Tea House. She drank some tea with her entourage and some local personnel.
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ARAMAZD, Armenia
ARAMAZD (Արամազդ), was the principal deity in Armenia’s pre-Christian pantheon. He displaced Amanor and Vanatur at the top of the pantheon. Called the father of all the gods and goddesses, Aramazd created the heavens and the earth. The first two letters in his name, “AR”, are the Armenian root for sun, light, and life. Worshiped as a sun-god, Aramazd was considered to be the source of earth’s fertility, making it fruitful and bountiful. The feast in his honor was called Amanor (Am'nor).
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Baatara Gorge Waterfall, Tannourine, Lebanon
The Baatara gorge sinkhole (Balaa gorge waterfall) is a waterfall in the Tannourine, Lebanon near Balaa.
The waterfall drops 255 metres (837 ft) into the Baatara Pothole, a cave of Jurassic limestone located on the Lebanon Mountain Trail.The cave is also known as the Cave of the Three Bridges. Traveling from Laklouk to Tannourine one passes the village of Balaa, and the Three Bridges Chasm (in French Gouffre des Trois Ponts) is a five-minute journey into the valley below where one sees three natural bridges, rising one above the other and overhanging a chasm descending into Mount Lebanon. During the spring melt, a 90–100-metre (300–330 ft) cascade falls behind the three bridges and then down into the 240-metre (790 ft) chasm.
Discovered to the western world in 1952 by French bio-speleologist Henri Coiffait,[6] the waterfall and accompanying sinkhole were fully mapped in the 1980s by the Spéléo club du Liban. A 1988 fluorescent dye test demonstrated that the water emerged at the spring of Dalleh in Mgharet al-Ghaouaghir (located near Balaa)
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Armenia
Armenia officially the Republic of Armenia is a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located in Western Asia[18][19] on the Armenian Highlands, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Republic of Artsakh and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and Azerbaijan’s exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.
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Oman - Sultanate of Oman
Oman officially the Sultanate of Oman (Arabic: سلطنة عُمان Salṭanat ʻUmān), is an Arab country on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. Holding a strategically important position at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the country shares land borders with the United Arab Emirates to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the west, and Yemen to the southwest, and shares marine borders with Iran and Pakistan. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the southeast and the Gulf of Oman on the northeast. The Madha and Musandam exclaves are surrounded by the UAE on their land borders, with the Strait of Hormuz (which it shares with Iran) and Gulf of Oman forming Musandam’s coastal boundaries.
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Byodoin Temple in Uji, Kyoto Japan…
Byōdō-in is a Buddhist temple in the city of Uji in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, built in late Heian period. It is jointly a temple of the Jōdo-shū (Pure Land) and Tendai-shū sects.
This temple was originally built in 998 in the Heian period as a rural villa of high-ranking courtier Minamoto no Shigenobu, Minister of the Left. After he died, one of the most powerful members of the Fujiwara clan, Fujiwara no Michinaga, purchased the property from the courtier’s widow. The villa was made into a Buddhist temple by Fujiwara no Yorimichi in 1052. The most famous building in the temple is the Phoenix Hall or the Amida Hall, constructed in 1053. It is the only remaining original building, surrounded by a scenic pond; additional buildings making up the compound were burnt down during a civil war in 1336.
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Great wall of China in Winter
You may have been told that winter is not the right season for visiting Great Wall, but for whatever the reasons, you happen to hike the Great Wall of China during the cold season. Great Wall winter hike has its advantages – the tourist crowds are gone so you can walk along the Great Wall hassle free. The prices are lower for Great Wall transportation and admission.
The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China to protect the Chinese states and empires against the raids and invasions of the various nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppe with an eye to expansion. Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century BC; these, later joined together and made bigger and stronger, are collectively referred to as the Great Wall. Especially famous is the wall built in 220–206 BC by Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. Little of that wall remains. The Great Wall has been rebuilt, maintained, and enhanced over various dynasties; the majority of the existing wall is from the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644).
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Yokohama, Japan
Yokohama literally “Port to the side” or “Beside the port”, is the second largest city in Japan by population, after Tokyo, and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu. It is a major commercial hub of the Greater Tokyo Area.
Yokohama’s population of 3.7 million makes it Japan’s largest city after the special wards of Tokyo. Yokohama developed rapidly as Japan’s prominent port city following the end of Japan’s relative isolation in the mid-19th century, and is today one of its major ports along with Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Hakata, Tokyo, and Chiba.
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South Korea Unveils Stunning Eco Dome Environmental Center
The Ecorium Project, South Korea’s planned nature reserve, is a stunner. The 33,000 sq. meter park includes a wetland reserve, a wild plant area, and maybe—just maybe—two dudes and their hilarious hijinks.
The Ecorium Project, designed by S.A.M.O.O., exists as a key part of South Korea’s National Ecological Institute, which is intended ‘ do comprehensive study of the converging eco-systems of nature, human and climate to ensure safety, stability and the harmonious coexistence of competing agendas’ according to a S.A.M.O.O. spokesperson. Comprised of a series of interlinking, wedge-shaped greenhouse semi-domes. Within these, high-tech instruments track the sun and adapt the internal environment to create the greenhouse’s own internal ecosystems. This is expertly achieved through sun-tracking analysis- according to which the greenhouses are positioned- and as a part of this, shadow-tracking. This creates an optimal growing environment for the plants within by preventing any semi-dome from shading another. Low-iron, Low-e double adorns the organic forms’ exteriors, contributing to the maintenance of the internal environment.
The buildings form an integral part of the public awareness/experience end of the grander NEI program, which ‘will play a important role as a think tank for research and policy making. Additionally, this institution will foster and nurture the general public’s awareness, educate and the importance of the environment through exhibitions and education programs’.
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Petra: The capital of the Nabataeans and the Center of Their Caravan Trade
Petra is a historical and archaeological city in the southern Jordanian governorate of Ma'an that is famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit system. Another name for Petra is the Rose City due to the color of the stone out of which it is carved.
Established possibly as early as 312 BCE as the capital city of the Nabataeans, it is a symbol of Jordan, as well as Jordan’s most-visited tourist attraction. It lies on the slope of Jebel al-Madhbah (identified by some as the biblical Mount Hor) in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah (Wadi Araba), the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. Petra has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985.
The Nabataeans, also Nabateans, were an ancient people who inhabited northern Arabia and Southern Levant, their settlements in CE 37 - c. 100, gave the name of Nabatene to the borderland between Arabia and Syria, from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. Their loosely-controlled trading network, which centered on strings of oases that they controlled, where agriculture was intensively practiced in limited areas, and on the routes that linked them, had no securely defined boundaries in the surrounding desert. Trajan conquered the Nabataean kingdom, annexing it to the Roman Empire, where their individual culture, easily identified by their characteristic finely-potted painted ceramics, became dispersed in the general Greco-Roman culture and was eventually lost.
Location: Ma'an Governorate,Jordan
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Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai, China
The Jin Mao Tower also known as the Jinmao Building or Jinmao Tower, is an 88-story (93 if counting the floors in the spire) landmark skyscraper in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai, China. It is 420.5 metres (1,380 feet) tall and is one of the tallest buildings in the world. It contains a shopping mall, offices and the Grand Hyatt Shanghai hotel, which at the time of completion was the highest hotel in the world. Along with the Oriental Pearl Tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center and the Shanghai Tower it is part of the Lujiazui skyline seen from the Bund. It was the tallest building in China from its completion in 1999 until 2007, when it was surpassed by the Shanghai World Financial Center which is located close by. The Shanghai Tower, a 121-story building located next to these two buildings, surpassed the height of both these buildings in 2015Type: Skyscraper (incl. office, hotel, tourism, & retail)Architectural style: Neo-FuturismLocation: 88 Century Avenue, Pudong District, Shanghai 200121, China
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Royal Palace, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
The Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, is a complex of buildings which serves as the royal residence of the king of Cambodia. Its full name in the Khmer language is Preah Barum Reachea Veang Chaktomuk Serei Mongkol. The Kings of Cambodia have occupied it since it was built in 1860s, with a period of absence when the country came into turmoil during and after the reign of the Khmer Rouge.The palace was constructed after King Norodom relocated the royal capital from Oudong to Phnom Penh in the mid-19th century. It was built atop an old citadel called Banteay Kev. It faces towards the East and is situated at the Western bank of the cross division of the Tonle Sap River and the Mekong River called Chaktomuk (an allusion to Brahma).
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Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Masjid in Darussalam (Brunei)
Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque is an Islamic mosque in Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of the Sultanate of Brunei. It is often considered as one of the most beautiful mosques in the Asia Pacific. It is a place of worship for the Muslim community, a major historical site, and a famous tourist attraction of Brunei.
Location: Road MacArthur, Bandar Seri Begawan BS8711, Brunéi Darussalam
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Hsinbyume Pagoda, Mingun, Sagaing Region, Myanmar
The Hsinbyume Pagoda also known as Myatheindan Pagoda is a large pagoda on the northern side of Mingun in Sagaing Region in Myanmar, on the western bank of the Irrawaddy River. It is approximately 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) northwest of Mandalay and is located in the proximity of the Mingun Pahtodawgyi. The pagoda is painted white and is modeled on the physical description of the Buddhist mythological mountain, Mount Meru.The pagoda was built in 1816 by Bagyidaw. It is dedicated to the memory of his first consort and cousin, Princess Hsinbyume. Princess White Elephant, 1789–1812) who had died in childbirth in a site nearby.
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Wat Taku, Ang thong, Thailand
This temple located in Ang Thong (about forty kilometers from Lopburi or Ayutthaya), about ten kilometers from the center of the city, is best known for its huge sitting Buddha
To go to the Wat Muang temple, you first have to go to Ang Thong (there are minivans from the Mo Chit Bus Terminal in Bangkok
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Gardens by the Bay - Supertrees Singapore
Gardens by the Bay is a nature park spanning 101 hectares (250 acres) of reclaimed land in central Singapore, adjacent to the Marina Reservoir. The park consists of three waterfront gardens: Bay South Garden, Bay East Garden and Bay Central Garden. The largest of the gardens is Bay South Garden at 54 hectares (130 acres).
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