The Summer Palace in Beijing with Friends

Remember my hair-brained scheme idea to head to Beijing once a week??? 

Well, it's time for another trip there.  Where oh where to go this week?????

Let's go check out 

The Summer Palace

wiki

hello lovely flower!  

wish you could come home with me

lovely flowers at a rest stop between Tianjin and Beijing

Oh my, we have quite a drive ahead of us.  The Summer Palace is in the northwest corner of Beijing and we'll be entering Beijing from the southeast side.  Sit tight and try to enjoy the ride.  Maybe we can find a game to play???  Linda and Wolf know a fun, easy game to play- every time you see a yellow car you tap- or smack- your fellow passengers.  Hee hee hee.  

Oh whew!  We've arrived at the East Gate of the Summer Palace.  Let's go buy tickets and head inside, okay?

Check out the "hats" some people are wearing.

Umbrella hats, anyone?

I think we're at the East Gate of the Summer Palace. Let's cross over this bridge.

Instilling Chinese pride one sign at a time!

 Just follow the crowd and let's see where we end up!  I think the journey, in this case, might be just as interesting as the end destination!

Up, up, up we go! Where are we going???

OOoooooo!!!! Just look at the lovely colors and designs!

And perhaps there is a little bit of rock climbing involved getting to wherever it is we are supposed to go. Which we're still not really sure of.

beautiful colors.

absolutely adore the circular door

 We've made it to the top of the hill, so now let's go down the hill.  This particular path has few people walking on it than the path we just passed by.

let's run down the tree lined path and see what lies on the other side of this hill we've climbed to the top of

amazing living piece of art….twisty turning bark.

 We've made it to the bottom of the hill and look at this lovely piece of bridegwork:

lovely bridges

Don't know if  you've noticed…but have you seen how many umbrellas people are using?  Well, they're parasols not umbrellas.  We've noticed more people in China using parasols for portable shade cover than anywhere else we've traveled to.  Not a bad idea, really.  It does make me feel like we've waltzed into the late 19th century though!!!! 

Linda was clever- she bought a map at the ticket booth.  The only problem is that the map is very difficult to decipher!

So…where are we?????

Yes, where are we???

 Let's find a place to eat lunch….we've got a small picnic lunch with us.

Well, we are next to a rather large lake- which if I've read correctly is man-made. Probably dug before land moving machines existed! How about we eat our picnic lunch here, close to the lake? I found a bench just over there. Can you see it? There aren't as many other tourists here. Maybe we can eat our lunch without becoming a tourist attraction ourselves!!!!

I did a tiny bit of reading on the Summer Palace online and many people suggested taking a dragon boat tour of the lake.  So, let's find one!

Just some lovelies:

 Oooo!!!! What is that???

I do believe this the marble boat I've read about. No one was allowed to step foot on it. This is as close as we could get to seeing it.

More lovely paintings:

Hey!!!!

The Chinese really are amazing!!! They even had telephone booths several hundred years ago!!!! 😉

 A snack shop:

I spy…Ice Cream!

 Mmmmm….ice cream!  And it's such a hot day too!  Let's get some!

Could that really be frozen pea flavor????? I think I'll stick with vanilla. Boring, I know.

Linda wants to go check out the Long Corridor.  

Oh my!

This structure is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.!!!!

And check out this Chinese fellow. His outfit is just as bright as his smile!!! 🙂

 The Long Corridor is 728 m long.  Covered in beautiful and very colorful paintings.

Look up. WOW! Check out the beautiful paintings and artwork on the ceiling!

Let's take a break from walking and concentrate on eating our ice cream. My, oh my. Check out that incredibly long hall.

 It just keeps going and going and going….

Let's take a boat ride!!!  We think we're heading out on a longer tour of the lake….

But no. 

Our little boat ride was just that.  A *very* short boat ride.  It just went from place A to place B- not a tour boat at all.  Oops.  We had thought we were going on longer boat tour of the entire lake.  Huh…I guess that's why those tickets were so darn cheap!!! 

oh gosh.  look at the time!!!  it's time to boogie on out of here and head back to the entrance to meet our driver, Mr. Li.

Purple Cloud Gate

Lovely pond with Chinese music playing in the background.  Actually a rather soothing place to sit after all the hustle and bustle around the lake. 

so what do you think of it here????

that good, huh????

cool, weird shaped entry way

Linda told us she'd read that these shops along the river were for royalty to go shopping and feel like they're commoners.

one last look….

We wisely decided not to head down to the shops- as you can see there is NO railing to keep people- especially small children- from falling into the river!!!!

now it really is time to go home.  relax, take a nap, grab a snack or read a book…it's about three hours before we'll be home.  

We're so glad you could hang out with us at the Summer Palace.  It is a beautiful place and definitely worth another trip- perhaps when there aren't so many other tourists to contend with!