We started the day looking for breakfast. Another couple on the tour told us about a little bakery next to our hotel and we figured we'd give it a try.
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| the bakery |
A few of the treats we bought inside the bakery
To further prepare us for teaching in our schools we sat
through four hours of training. We
practiced some Chinese words that would help us maintain order in our classes
but mostly dazed in and out because it was so humid.
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| The class room |
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| Restaurant where we ate lunch |
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| Beijing Wiring |
After lunch we were excited to visit The Summer Palace. We took the subway and after about a dozen stops we arrived. The Summer Palace is the former playground for emperors fleeing the suffocating summer torpor of the old imperial city. The grounds, temples, gardens, pavilions, lakes, bridges, gate towers and corridors are a marvel of landscaping. It was considered a royal garden before being enlarged and embellished by Emperor Qianlong in the 18th century. He marshaled a 100,000-strong army of laborers to complete the task. One of the marvels of visiting the Summer Palace is the marble boat constructed by Empress Dowager Cixi.
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| tickets to the Palace |
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| Suhou Street in the Palace compound |
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| Gateway to the Palace |
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| Courtyard in the Palace |
pillars at the palace
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| the palace over looking Beijing |
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| roof line in the palace |
Characters guarding the palace buildings
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| ceiling in one of the palace rooms |
more tops of the buildings in the Palace
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| beautiful flowers |
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| Alan and Heidi at the lookout in the Palace |
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| Alan in front of the Buda Palace inside the Main Palace |
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| Mini Buda's on the side of the building |
In side the Palace there are ton of little vendors selling their talent. We found this guy who was making little things out of Bamboo. To the Right is a little grass hopper he made.
Everything in the Palace is done with extreme detail. Above is more art work that is placed in the doorways.
We started our exploration from what I consider the backside and climbed many steps to explore the buildings and gardens. One of the coolest features was manmade caves that we crawled through to get from place to place.
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| Alan an Jon posing outside one of the doorways. |
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| The Caves that are placed throughout the Palace Grounds |
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| Ceiling in on of the towers |
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| One of the buildings that touches the water |
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| This sign was posted all over the palace grounds. We thought the english translation was a little funny. |
When we arrived at the banks of the lake we paid the fair to ride a dragon boat to the South Lake Island.
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| the dragon boat |
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| The marble boat constructed by Empress Dowager Cixi. |
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| the north end of the Palace |
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| Heidi and Alan on the Dragon Boat |
In a pagoda they offered to take old fashion emperor photos of us that we couldn’t resist.
Getting our costumes on
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| Empress and Emperor Green |
The Biens decided to take the photo's too!
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| Empress and Emperor Biens |
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| Heidi in the gift shop |
To get back to the hotel we crossed the 17-arch bridge that connected the island to the mainland and walked back to the subway station. We definitely got our 3-5 miles of walking in today.
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| another funny sign |
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| A car parked on the sidewalk |
The above two photos are things we found on our walk back to the the Subway and just thought they were funny and cute. After we made it back to the motel we had to hand wash a few of our clothes to prepare to travel to Yangzhong in the next few days.
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| Laundry Drying in the Bathroom. |
Coming up more training a travels to Yangzhong!
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