Dragon Tower on May 13th in Harbin.On May 13th I went to a the dragon tower in Harbin with Tianhua and Annie. This entry mainly just shares photographs of the visit. It seems in China the people who hold sway over the big cities tend expect that their city should have an impressive television tower. The towers bear some resemblance to Seattle’s Space Needle (1962) or Berlin’s televison tower [Fernsehturm Berlin] (1969) or Stuttgart’s Television Tower. My first encounter with such towers was the Space Needle in Seattle, but I remember most clearly our family visiting the Canadian National railroad tower in Toronto in the late 1970s, just a few years after its construction was completed. The other famous tower in China is probably the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai. |
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| Here I am with Annie, who came to live in Springfield with her mom back in 2008-2009. We are posing in front of the lilac bushes at Dragon Tower. There are lilac bushes all over Harbin, and in this second week of May the perfume from the flowers is a lovely attraction as you walk around outdoors. | Tianhua, who was a visit scholar from Harbin to the University of Illinois in Springfield in the 2008-2009 academic year, took me and her daughter Annie to the Dragon Tower. She is posing here with her very clever and friendly daughter, Annie. | The model of the Dragon Tower inside the tower was possibly more beautiful than the actual tower itself. The interior of the Dragon Tower was full of interesting things. |
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| There was a fairly impressive display of dinosaur fossils and model skeletons. | Dinosaurs in the Dragon Tower. | Dinosaur. |
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| Dinosaur. | A poem by Mao Tse-Deng on the steps at a shrine used as a photography prop in the Dragon Tower. | Mickey Mouse and his Chinese Dragon friend, naturally this is in the Dragon Tower. |
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| Annie bending backwards in the Dragon Tower. | A small museum about Confucious in the Dragon Tower featured several statues representing Confucious. | A small statue in the Confucian School Museum within the Dragon Tower. |
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| Annie on the throne. | Eric on the throne, trying to look serious and stern. | Annie at a desk in the Confucian School Museum. |
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| Annie with the television crew diorama at the television station within the Dragon Tower. | Looking straight down through the floor of the Dragon Tower. | Tianhua in the indoor observation deck of the Dragon Tower. |
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| A view of Harbin from the Dragon Television Tower. If you click to get the large image linked to this picture, it will take a while to download, as it is huge. | Another view of Harbin from Dragon Tower, and the large image linked to this picture is massive. | Annie in the Dragon Tower observation deck. |
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| Annie in the outdoors observation deck way up in the Dragon Tower. | Toys made with bullet shells. | Tianhua with her daughter Annie in the Dragon Tower. |
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| A fine butterfly, one of Annie’s favorites. | Butterfly displayed in the Dragon Tower. | Another butterfly up in the Dragon Tower. |
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| Butterfly display. | Tianhua with butterfly display. | Some beautiful butterflies on display. |
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| Fu, the word for abundance and wealth and good fortune. | A hall with money and lucky words all over the wall. | Annie in front of a window in one of the observation decks in Dragon Tower. |
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| Some of the things you can buy when you visit the Dragon Tower. | There was a buffet in the rotating restaurant. | Mushroom style trash can under the Dragon Tower. |
Up in the Dragon Tower there was delicious food, a wall with money on it, displays of beautiful butterflies, views over Harbin, displays of saints and holy figures, good fortune calligraphy, and information about Chinese movie stars. Coming down to earth in the elevator it seemed like were were descending from some sort of worldly paradise to a mundane existence. Indeed, in my initial experiences of the streets of Harbin are a huge contrast to what it felt like in the Dragon Tower. Traffic is fairly chaotic, and the streets are crowded with vehicles. There is lots of activity and life on the sidewalks, but the crowds, the commerce, and the dust and grit are unlike the subdued atmosphere up in the tower. |
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