Beijing



I became quite the diligent tourist in Beijing with little time and very much to see in this city filled with sights. My life in Shanghai seemed to follow me as several of my friends appeared during my week of cultural jaunts. The history lesson began in Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, a huge complex of halls, towers and pavilions covered in golden tiles. Here was the home of 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for nearly 500 years. I was caught in a rainstorm while carousing this Palace Museum which added to the magestic mood. As evening fell I made my way to Jingshan Park which overlooks the Forbidden City.



I was very much taken with the Summer Palace which is in fact the largest existing ancient imperial garden of China. All day can be spent walking these grounds and marveling at the detail in the construction.
An old Chinese fortune teller inscribing my fortune which reads ‘everything is as I wish’. Clever man!

the killing fields

The devastation that met so many Cambodians in the years of the Khmer Rouge’s rule is unthinkable. A day frought with emotion and much sadness as I visited the Tuol Sleng Museum, once the Tuol Svay Prey High School, turned Security Prison 21, the largest center of detention and torture in the country. The spaces where so many innocent lives were lost, chambers with rusty beds, wooden cells in which there was room only for grief. The survivors of this prison were taken to the killing fields of Cheoung Ek, which became the memorial of these 17,000 men, women and children who were so wrongfully executed. 129 mass graves, sights of a dark and somber past that will remain with me as I journey through history.

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