Film City, Tong 'an

This is dated material, but thought I'd share a little more about our October "staycation." One day we took the company up on their offer of a driver (we usually just have him take Gene to and from work and other special occasions like airport runs). We also asked a young co-worker, Wendy, to join us both for fun and to help us with the language! We first went to a place called Film City in the village of Tong'an which is about a half hour drive from here. We were able to get discounted tickets since there was a promotion for "golden week." They didn't cost much to begin with (about $4 per adult) but we always like discounts anyway. Here we are at the main gate of the park, dwarfed by the massive traditional structure. We had a lovely, summer-like day and were glad to see that there were very few other people--we don't enjoy crowds and they can be very hard to avoid in this densely populated country!
Long-distance view of the replica of the Imperial Palace (Forbidden City) in Beijing. It was massive, though still a scale-model of the original. Supposedly many Chinese movies are filmed here when it's either inconvenient or undesired to go to the actual historical locations. No films were being shot on this day, though.
We had to cross over a large pedestrian bridge to get to the site of the palaces, complete with long rows of the red Chinese flag. This was early in the day, so Amanda was still up for some running!
We took turns with the other tourists posing in the pedicab. We have yet to see any of these here, but saw plenty in Hawaii! Maybe other cities in China still use these, too.
Right next to this huge outdoor film studio, we saw men fishing in a very tradtional way. Not sure what they're catching in their baskets and nets, could be frogs or turtles or fish or who-knows-what (I've seen lots of "interesting" seafood in the outdoor markets, so I try not to assume too much. Just yesterday, I saw cages with pigeons in them and they were not meant to be used for carrying messages! I tried to explane to my Chinese companion that those birds are considered rats with wings in the US and she thought it was pretty gross too.) Notice the triangular straw hats...they're not just from the movies, people actually still use them.
Burning in the hot sun on the replica Great Wall. I'm pretty sure the real wall is a bit wider than this one...but it was still fun to try it out.
This is one of the guard towers at the far end of the "Great Wall." There were quite a few brass (?) statues of ancient-looking soldiers, cannons and huge horses that didn't photograph well. They were also hot to the touch and we couldn't spend too much time up there as we were getting too warm.
This is a very long path, a replica of the Summer Palace path and garden. The ceiling was very ornate and we liked the benches all along the sides for resting. We, however, declined to take naps as some locals did. Sleeping in public is fairly common here, and not just for those who have nowhere else to go. We've seen a number of park-sleepers, most notably the guy who was using an empty water bottle as a pillow! We've discovered that there is a bit of a "siesta" culture here in which the lunch hour is also used as a resting time. Gene's co-workers all use the first half hour to eat and the second half hour to sleep at their desks! I'm pretty sure I'd sleep for two hours, drool all over the desk and end up fired if I were to ever try this!
The front of the Forbidden City, complete with huge Mao poster. Now we've sort of "been there," with the photo to prove it, just in case we never get to the real place! Haha, there would be at least 20,000 others in the photo if this was the real place!
Snow? In southern China? No, just a really odd and sort of creepy indoor winter replication. This is actually white sand and they keep the place very dark. It was like a huge warehouse with a few fake trees and white walls and white sand on the floor.
The girls pretending to be cold in front of the not-very-convincing ice cave. Notice the large seam/crack...I can't imagine that filming in here would look at all real, but maybe they have talented camera operators and finishing crew who know how to make it work.
Since we were a bit off the beaten path, we were more of an anomaly than usual, being a white family and all. We got even more stares than we typically do (our theory is that foreign business men have become pretty common, but families are still out of the norm). Our girls were asked repeatedly to pose for pictures--so we turned the tables and took pictures of the photographers. Some people are offended by repeated requests for pictures but we were in no hurry and the girls are still flattered to be asked, so we didn't mind. Thankfully no one was aggressive and our kids are old enough to not be freaked out by it all. I talked to an Australian woman recently whose darling, two year old white-blond daughter is approached many times each day and was reminded that it is not always a great experience to look so different from everyone else.
After our several-hour tour of ancient Beijing, we set off for a mountain/waterfall park that was listed in our Xiamen tour book...more on that coming soon.