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Visiting Imperial Tombs pt 3
I would like to start this third post in the series by jumping back in time to the 13th century, and Emperor Go-Uda (#91, r. 1274-1281), whose mausoleum was easily one of my top favorite visits. I woke up on Feb 24 this year (fortunately, a National Holiday, and a day off from work) to find a fair amount of snow in my little private rock garden, and I don’t think I could have known that it would…
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Visiting Imperial Tombs pt 2
As it happens, I visited the tomb of Emperor Jimmu, the legendary first emperor of Japan, since writing the last post, so I guess we’ll start there. Here it is. One thing I guess I was surprised by is that from what I can tell, the area identified as Unebi goryô, that is, the mausoleum site, is not the entirety of Mt. Unebi, nor the center of the mountain, but just off to one side. Many of the…
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Visiting Imperial Tombs
The tomb, in Fushimi (southern Kyoto) of Emperor Kammu 桓武天皇 (r. 781-806), first emperor to make Heian (Kyoto) his capital. The mausoleum of the Meiji Emperor 明治天皇 (r. 1867-1912), the last emperor to rule from Kyoto, is located nearby. Incidentally, quite possibly the first imperial tomb I ever visited, back in 2010. Since moving to Kyoto two years ago, I almost couldn’t help it but to come…
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6 Things to Do in the Imperial City of Hue
6 Things to Do in the Imperial City of Hue
Hue is a charming city in central Vietnam that lies along the banks of the Perfume River. It’s one of the cities in Vietnam that has a long and vibrant history since it used to be the home of the country’s ruling dynasties. In fact, the city was Vietnam’s capital for more than a hundred years. As you explore the city of Hue today, you’ll come across a number of historic ruins and ancient…
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Once the capital of Vietnam, Hue City was for years, home to 13 emperors of the last Vietnamese dynasty. From 1802 to 1945, the powerful Nguyen Dynasty made waves not only in politics but also culturally and religiously. Many used to call the tombs of Old Hue a place where “death smiles and joy sighs.” Today, evidence of their reign still exists and continues to live on by the Perfume River in seven carefully structured imperial tombs.
Some views from Hue and its surroundings.
Day Seventeen: Hue, Part II
One of the standard tourist attractions of Hue are the imperial tombs which surround the city. While most city tours hit two of the most impressive (those of Minh Mang and Khai Dinh), I decided that I had enough time to take the day and go to all six, plus the biggest pagoda in the area, Thien Mu. I hired a moto driver for the day through my hostel, and we set off at around 9 a.m. Unfortunately, despite clearly stating that I wanted to start at the pagoda (the nearest point to my hostel), the driver said okay and promptly took me in exactly the opposite direction. When we arrived in a small town, I asked him if we were going to the pagoda (although clearly we weren't), and his response was "I breakfast first." Awesome. Perhaps if this had been a last minute thing, it would have been less irritating, but not only had it been planned in advance, he also turned up half an hour earlier than planned and ended up rushing me to leave. Now generally, this is due to the fact that drivers get a free meal if they get their clients to eat at certain restaurants, but he didn't even try to make me eat; apparently he just didn't want to have to drive to this town for breakfast, into Hue, and back out again. He urged me to go and walk around by waving his hands and saying "you picture, you picture," until I did just that to appease him. It took me all of two minutes to grab some photos of the town and get back to the restaurant, where I felt no guilt about sitting and staring rather pointedly at his meal until he stopped trying to talk me into going to an extra tomb that I hadn't planned on going to, and started eating at a reasonable speed. Again, I finally agreed to go to the tomb just to appease him, after assurances that I would have plenty of time to see everything that I had originally wanted to, and we set off for the tomb of Emperor Gia Long, the furthest point on the map from my hostel. After a long drive down very bumpy unpaved roads, too small for any car to go on (or at least any car with a sane driver), we arrived at the rather unimpressive building that houses the bodies of Gia Long and his second wife. His first wife is buried in a separate building next door. Although a bit unkempt, it did have some interesting statues that put me in mind of the Chinese terra cotta warriors. After this, we went to the tombs of Minh Mang, Khai Dinh, Thieu Tri, Tu Duc, and Dong Khanh. The first two, the grandest and best preserved, I paid to go into; the latter three I made do with taking some photos from outside. At $4 a pop, quite a chunk of money by Vietnamese standards, I figured I could live without seeing another tomb that looked more or less like a dozen other 19th century buildings I've seen since arriving in Vietnam. Our final stop was the Thien Mu pagoda, a tall building overlooking the river. The pagoda itself wasn't overly large or even particularly impressive, but the grounds surrounding it (including the monks' living quarters) were wonderfully quiet and peaceful. After the pagoda it was back to the hostel, where I reveled being in air-conditioning for a few hours before joining a new Italian friend on a trip to the night market. It wasn't massive (at least not by Hanoi's standards, my only comparison), but it had some interesting knick knacks and good food. We opted for a frozen yogurt dessert, that was literally yogurt, semi-frozen, in a plastic ziploc-type bag with a straw stuck inside and tied off with a rubber band. It was actually really refreshing. On our way back to the hostel, we stopped and grabbed a drink with another friend of hers that we ran into on the street, and then it was back to rest up for my DMZ tour, which would come far too early the next morning.
Work on Guangzhou Metro Line 6 destroys five ancient tombs
Guangzhou Metro is facing a public outcry after contractors destroyed a group of ancient imperial tombs in the Menggang district during construction of Line 6 of its subway system.
The tombs, ranging from 2,200 to more than 3,000 years old and still being studied by archaeologists, were wrecked by excavators on Friday night.
The protected site, on the eastern slope of Da Gong mountain, had been sealed off by the Guangzhou Archaeology Research Centre, with warning signs posted and red lines marking the protected area.
It was fine when archaeologists left on Friday but had been torn up by the time they returned on Saturday. Read more.
