We went to a seaside resort for a couple of days – relaxing on the west coast of Sweden.
I took some new photos. This: Thursday evening on the beach. Click here for more new.
Arkitektur
SL-WEEK 37: Electricity
Sylvain Landry this week – something essential in our high – tech society – electricity.
The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Yangtze River in China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world’s largest power station with a total electric generating capacity of 22.500MW.
The dam project was started in 1993 and completed in 2012,
As well as producing electricity, the dam is intended to increase the Yangtze River’s shipping capacity and reduce the potential for floods downstream. The Chinese government regards the project as a total success, However, the dam flooded archeological and cultural sites and displaced some 1.4 million people, (See the post on Shibaozhai earlier.) It is also causing significant ecological changes, The Chinese river dolphin became extinguished and there is an increased risk of landslides. The dam was built in an area of potential earthquakes, and the consequences if – this would happen, would be disastrous.
There are two series of ship locks installed – each of them is made up of five stages, with transit time at around four hours. We passed during the night. Looking out from the balcony, this is what we saw.
Architecture and Giant Amazons
Den Blå Planet (The Blue Planet) opened in 2013 in Kastrup, a suburb of Copenhagen. It resembles a whirlpool when seen from above, and was designed by Danish architects It covers a total of 12,000 m2 (130,000 sq ft), including the 10,000 m2 (110,000 sq ft) building and 2,000 m2 (22,000 sq ft) outdoors.
The Blue Planet contains about 7,000,000 litres (1,500,000 imp gal; 1,800,000 US gal) of water divided into 53 exhibits. In the first year of existence, the aquarium received approximately 1.3 million visitors – twice as many as expected.
Just as the architecture is special and artistic, so are the giant freshwater fish from the Amazon. Look at those metal scales…and the intricate patterns on its head. Arowanas.
Surely man can never compete with nature in architecture.
CFFC: Indoor Seating
Indoor seating for Cee this week – I just adored this chair at J.K. Rowling ‘s favourite café (where she wrote Harry Potter) in Edinburgh – The Elephant House.
And…
in case you have got some money you do not know how to spend…
…and maybe you are in desperate need of a hand carved and hand painted Chinese palanquin?
Well, here you have garanteed indoor seating even outdoors…
Cee’s Black&White Challenge: Crooked and Squiggly Lines
In China there are many crooked and squiggly lines – these two shots are from Yu Yuan Garden in Shanghai. More of this challenge here.
Thank you for being featured last week!
Travel theme: Square
When we had our façade refreshed, the entire house was covered in a net…of squares.
Click here fo rmore interpretations!
CFFC: Things That are Rough
Gaudí’s garden, Spain.
Do you like things Rough? Go to Cee, here, for more!
And thank you so much for being featured on smooth things!
SL-WEEK 33: Stairs
For Sylvain Landry and SL- WEEK: The Stairs of the new library in Riga.
Shibaozhai – Precious Stone Fortress
In the Territory of Zhongxian County of Chongqing there is a rock on the Yangtze river, with a vermilion 12-storey pavilion built against it.
No post was made on this, because I thought the weather was too bad and my shots could not give a fair picture of its beauty. Tonight I happened to find this pavilion again…and a post just had to be written. This is a beautiful piece of art – try to forget about the miserable weather conditions and just enjoy.
Built in the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644), Shibaozhai consists of a gate, a pavilion and a temple.
The bridge out to the cliff is rather tricky to walk. A good advice is to walk in the middle…
…and then follow the marble reliefs.
The gate is covered with some vivid reliefs, and within the gate is the 184 feet high 12-storey wooden pavilion. It is the tallest specimen of ancient architecture with the most storeys in China. A breathtaking view when the pavilion comes in sight just around the corner.
Originally it was only nine storeys high,
but in 1956 three more (called Kuixing Pavilion) were added. A spiral staircase in the pavilion can take tourists to the top to reach the temple.
Inside the pavilion, there are steles and inscriptions of past dynasties on each floor. And on your way up, you can also admire the Yangtze River from the windows of each floor.
At least some of it…in the drizzle.
Upon arriving at the top of the pavilion, there is a flat stone dam. Here stands the ancient ‘Lanruo Temple’ at the highest point of the Precious Stone Fortress.
The so-called Rice Flowing Hole has a legend to it. According to this legend, rice flowed from the hole every day after the temple had been built. A greedy monk wanting even more rice to flow from the hole made it larger – and from that day no more rice appeared.
After the water level rose because of the Three Gorges Dam Project, millions of people had to leave their homes for ever, and the Shibaozhai too was threatened to disappear in the water. Thanks to measurements to protect the pavilion, we can still visit this masterpiece today.
Go back to the first photo again – and you will realize that the whole village beneath the pavilion is now submerged.
WPC: Time
Time – we are all moving in it – and through it. And looking back…through what we think is a clear window frame, we realize the blur and the shadows. Time changes everything, and we can never know or be certain about the way everything looked or worked…
Not in Ostia Antica, Rome, and not even yesterday, at home. In our minds we can imagine or remember – but the moment in time is gone.
Leya 
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