Taroko - Hualien Taiwan  October 2013

Gulangyu Island - Xiamen  April 2013

Gulangyu is a car-free island off the coast of Xiamen, Fujian province in southern China.

 

The Summer Palace - Beijing   July 2012

Originally named Garden of Clear Ripples, it was built by Emperor Qianlong in 1750 to celebrate his mother's birthday. It  was then used as a garden for emperors and empresses, until it was burned down by the Anglo-French Allied Forces in 1860. Empress Dowager Cixi diverted navy funds to rebuild it in 1886 but it was seriously damaged again by the Allied Forces of Eight Powers in 1900. Restoration was in place in 1902 and the Summer Palace was opened to the public as a private property of the Qing imperial family in 1914 and then formally opened as a park in 1924. In 1998, it was inscribed on the World Heritage List by UNESCO and has become a treasure of human civilisation.

Redwoods (SFO) August 2012

The Redwoods  by Joseph P. Strauss

Here, sown by the Creator's hand.
In serried ranks, the Redwoods stand:
No other clime is honored so,
No other lands their glory know.

The greatest of Earth's living forms,
Tall conquerors that laugh at storms;
Their challenge still unanswered rings,
Through fifty centuries of kings.

The nations that with them were young,
Rich empires, with their forts far-flung,
Lie buried now-their splendor gone:
But these proud monarchs still live on.

So shall they live, when ends our days,
When our crude citadels decay;
For brief the years allotted man,
But infinite perennials' span.

This is their temple, vaulted high,
And here, we pause with reverent eye,
With silent tongue and awestruck soul;
For here we sense life's proper goal:

To be like these, straight, true and fine,
to make our world like theirs, a shrine;
Sink down, Oh, traveler, on your knees,
God stands before you in these trees.

San Francisco August 2012

 

" I am the thing that men denied,
The right to be, the urge to live;
And I am that which men defied,
Yet I ask naught for what I give.

My arms are flung across the deep,
Into the clouds my towers soar,
And where the waters never sleep,
I guard the California shore.

Above the fogs of scorn and doubt,
Triumphant gleams my web of steel;
Still shall I ride the wild storms out,
And still the thrill of conquest feel.

The passing world may never know
The epic of my grim travail;
It matters not, nor friend or foe –
My place to serve and none to fail.

My being cradled in despair,
Now grown so wondrous fair and strong,
And glorified beyond compare,
Rebukes the error and the wrong.

Vast shafts of steel, wave-battered pier,
And all the splendor meant to be;
Wind-swept and free, these, year on year,
Shall chant my hymm of Victory!

The Golden Gate Bridge by Joseph P. Strauss