Daming Palace

It looks like we haven't posted since August. Eeek! We knew we had been bad bloggers this semester but hadn't imagined it was that bad. Our apologies. We will do our best to improve during these next months, but Spring Festival is coming which means we will be doing some traveling in Southeast Asia and not doing much blogging in the end of January and February.. However, we WILL be posting in the month of January as we have lots to catch up on and more time as the fall semester winds down.

Back in September (yes September!) we visited a site in the northeast of Xi'an which used to be of great importance. Daming Palace or the "Palace of Great Brilliance" was an imperial palace complex during the Tang Dynasty. As it was located in the capital, Chang'an (present day Xi'an), of that dynasty, it housed the royal residents for more than 200 years.

Here are some views of the reconstructed Danfeng Gate which is at the entrance to the site.

 

I'm sure back then it was really something to behold, but today it's mostly a vast plot of land with signs here and there to indicate where things had once been and very few trees. Nevertheless, it is designated as a national heritage site of China.

There are several museums at the site you can wander into. Inside the reconstructed Danfeng Gate, the old remains of the gate are exhibited. There are also ceramic and calligraphy exhibits that we visited. The ceramics were our favorite.

Here is a Tang Dynasty lady with her pet cat followed by another example of the pottery that we saw.

We actually got quite lost walking around, but enjoyed the nice day and blue skies.  Here you can see the lake that is in the north of the park.