Zheng yang men

11th April 2009 – Tianjin, China

Early in the morning, we went to Zhengyangmen for a visit. Before that, Qianmen Street. Located near to Tiananmen Square, Qianmen Street is no more than 2km long, has been a prosperous street for more than 600 years and has accummulated a long of long-standing store. There is the traditional tram car in Qianmen Street, dandan car. But now, it’s newly reconstructed, not much shops are opened. So we only took a pictures and left the street.

Zhengyangmen is the starting of the dragon pulse in Beijing, which means dragon’s head, ‘long tou’. The whole ‘long mai’ extend from Zhengyangmen through Tiananmen Square, through forbidden city and ends at Jing Shan Park. We didn’t went to Jing Shan Park, only caught a glimpse of it when we enter Forbidden City through the back gate. It’s hill was created from earth that was evacated while building the palace moat. By the way, the last emperor of Ming Chongzhen killed himself by hanging from a locust tree (huaishu) in the park in 1644.

There is another shopping tour in Zhengyangmen which talk about the fengshui and selling of pi xiu. An auspicious beast engrave in stone. Again, nobody bought cas too expensive.

Tianjin Gu Cheng Jie