A View of Jade Belt Bridge 玉带桥
Bridges are something of an art to the Chinese. However, leave bridge building to emperors and they and come up with some pretty amazing stuff. The Jade Belt Bridge 玉带桥 is a bridge which crosses one of the inlets of Kunming Lake, this one leads to the Yu River 玉河. If you think of a classically designed Chinese bridge, this is what you would come up with. The design of the bridge has been replicated thousands of times in Chinese gardens all over the world, but this is the first time I saw one like this here.
Curved Top of Jade Belt Bridge 玉带桥
The Jade Belt Bridge is so named because the bridge is made of gray and white marble which combined appears to look like a jade belt. You can imagine the bridge to be built on top of a semi circle. The bridge is also unusually steep, so steep that the top of the bridge itself is curved. The Jade Belt Bridge has a very high arc and this naturally allowed traffic to pass through. When the emperor or empress needs to go to the nearby Jade Spring Hills 玉泉山, they usually pass under the Jade Belt Bridge.
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