Program 1-D: Page 1 of 18 Eclipse-City along China’s Silk Road in the Xinjiang Province Program 1-D Eclipse-City along China’s Ancient Silk Road From Kashgar to Hami Eclipse-City is happy to announce its extended China eclipse-program. Our extended 2008 eclipse program for China will take you primarily to China’s Northwestern Uyghur Autonomous Province of Xinjiang. Xinjiang is the largest political subdivision of China - it accounts for more than one sixth of China's total territory, a quarter of its boundary length, but only 1.5% of its total population. It is divided into two basins by the Tianshan Mountain range. Dzungarian Basin is in the north, and Tarim Basin is in the south. Xinjiang's lowest point is located in the Turfan Depression, 155 meters below sea level (second lowest in the world). Its highest peak, K2, the second highest mountain in the world, is 8,611 meters above sea level, at the border with Pakistan. This tour, based around our core program (1A), emphasizes even more the historical richness of the Silk Road in the Xinjiang province. We will travel some 2,000 km by comfortable tourist coach busses along China’s Silk Road and experience unforgettable highlights, such as the view of crystal clear high altitude lakes surrounded by snow-caped mountains, drive along the world’s second lowest point in Turpan Basin, visit ancient caves with Buddhist paintings, shop in multi-ethnic bazaars, witness stunning sand dunes, watch and/or ride the famous Barkol horse or camels and of course, enjoy more than 2 minutes of totality in our specially built camp in the Gobi Desert. You will be accompanied by our multilingual staff, bilingual local guides, and of course, astronomy experts from the international community as well as from Urumqi Observatory. We have personally inspected all hotels, 2 to 4 stars depending on the visited locations. Our “Kazakh Eclipse Cities” will be ashore lake Balikun and on “the dunes”, on our viewing site, both incredible locations. Full board and an award winning show and eclipse gala dinner, will make this trip, an unforgettable experience. The Olympic Summer games start on August 8th 2008 in Beijing. We do therefore strongly recommend to place your bookings for the tour as early as possible. Welcome again to Eclipse-City Managing Director Eclipse-City Ltd. Where the moon mates the sun www.eclipse-city.com Program 1-D: Page 2 of 18 Eclipse-City along China’s Silk Road in the Xinjiang Province Program 1-D Eclipse-City along China’s Ancient Silk Road From Kashgar to Hami www.eclipse-city.com Program 1-D: Page 3 of 18 Eclipse-City along China’s Silk Road in the Xinjiang Province Program 1-D: 14-day program ex Beijing (China) Monday July 21st – Sunday August 3rd 2008 Euros 3,789.- p.p. (single supplement policy applies) Monday, July 21st 2008 – Beijing Arrival in Beijing in the morning from your home country. Depending on your arrival, we will pick you up and bring you to your hotel. In the afternoon we will drive you into your first Beijing impressions: visit of Tiananmen Square, and Temple of Heaven. Tiananmen was built in 1417 in the Ming Dynasty. In 1699 (early Qing Dynasty), Tiananmen was renovated and renamed to its present form. During the Ming and Qing eras, there was no public square at Tiananmen, and instead the area was filled with offices for imperial ministries. These were badly damaged during the Boxer Rebellion and the area was cleared to produce the beginning of Tiananmen Square. The square is 880 meters south to north and 500 meters east to west, a total area of 440,000 square meters, which makes it the largest open-urban square in the world. Near the centre of today's square, close to the site of the Mao Zedong Mausoleum, once stood one of the most important gates of Beijing. This gate was known as the "Great Ming Gate" during the Ming Dynasty, "Great Qing Gate" during the Qing Dynasty, and "Gate of China" during the Republic of China era. Unlike the other gates in Beijing, such as the Tiananmen and the Qianmen, this was a purely ceremonial gateway, with three arches but no ramparts, similar in style to the ceremonial gateways found in the Ming Dynasty Tombs. This gate had a special status as the "Gate of the Nation", as can be seen from its successive names. It normally remained closed, except when the Emperor passed through. Commoner traffic were diverted to two side gates at the western and eastern ends of today's square, respectively. Because of this diversion in traffic, a busy marketplace, called Chess grid Streets developed in the small, fenced square to the south of this gate. In the early 1950s, the Gate of China (as it was then known) was demolished along with the chess grid streets to the south, completing the expansion of Tiananmen Square to (approximately) its current size. The Temple of Heaven, literally the Altar of Heaven, is a complex of Taoist buildings situated in southeastern urban Beijing, in Xuanwu District. Construction of the complex began in 1420, and was thereafter visited by all subsequent Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is regarded as a www.eclipse-city.com Program 1-D: Page 4 of 18 Eclipse-City along China’s Silk Road in the Xinjiang Province Taoist temple, although the worship of Heaven, especially by the reigning monarch of the day, pre- dates Taoism. After the peasant rebellion that obliterated the Ming Dynasty, a peasant shot an arrow into the sign. The Temple grounds covers 2.73 km2 of parkland, and comprises three main groups of constructions, all built according to strict philosophical requirements. The Earthly Mount is the altar proper. It is an empty platform on three levels of marble stones, where the Emperor prayed for favourable weather; the House of Heavenly Lord, a single-gabled circular building, built on a single level of marble stone base, where the altars were housed when not in use; the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, a magnificent triple-gabled circular building, built on three levels of marble stone base, where the Emperor prayed for good harvests. In ancient China, the Emperor of China was regarded as the "Son of Heaven", who administered earthly matters on behalf of, and representing, heavenly authority. To be seen to be showing respect to the source of his authority, in the form of sacrifices to heaven, was extremely important. The temple was built for these ceremonies, mostly comprised of prayers for good harvests. Each winter solstice the Emperor and all his retinue would move through the city to encamp within the complex, wearing special robes and abstaining from eating meat; there the Emperor would personally pray to Heaven for good harvests. The ceremony had to be perfectly completed; it was widely held that the smallest of mistakes would constitute a bad omen for the whole nation in the coming year. The Temple of Heaven is the grandest of the four great temples located in Beijing. The other prominent temples include the Temple of Sun in the east, the Temple of Earth in the north, and the Temple of Moon in the west. According to Xinhua, in early 2005, the Temple of Heaven underwent a 47 million yuan (5.9 million USD) face-lift in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and the restoration was completed on May 1st, 2006. The Temple of Heaven was registered on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1998. Dinner and overnight in Beijing. Tuesday, July 22nd 2008 – Forbidden City and Great Wall In the morning we will visit the Forbidden City and its palaces; in the afternoon we will exit Beijing to the Great Wall (130 km outside of Beijing) and the famous 13 Ming tombs and "Avenue of Souls". The Forbidden City, literally "Purple Forbidden City", was the Chinese imperial palace during the mid- Ming and the Qing Dynasties. The Forbidden City is located in the middle of Beijing, China. It is now known as the Palace Museum. Its extensive grounds cover 720,000 square meters (approximately 178 acres) and is composed of 800 buildings with 8,886 rooms. www.eclipse-city.com Program 1-D: Page 5 of 18 Eclipse-City along China’s Silk Road in the Xinjiang Province The Forbidden City, listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world, was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 as the "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties". The Palace Museum in the Forbidden City should not be confused with the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan island. Both museums derive from the same institution, but they were split after the Chinese Civil War. The Great Wall of China or literally "The long wall of 10,000 Li” is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in China, built between 5th century BC and the 17th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire during the rule of successive dynasties. Several walls, referred to as the Great Wall of China, were built since the 5th century BC, the most famous being the one built between 220 BC and 200 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang; this wall was located much further north than the current wall built during the Ming Dynasty, and little of it remains. The Great Wall is one of the existing mega structures and the world's longest man-made structure, stretching over 6,352 km (3,948 miles) from Shanghai Pass in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia.