The Summer Palace: Beijing Series

The next day was our tour of the city, and our first stop was the Summer Palace. As the rest house of the emperor of China, I knew we were in for another sort of magnificence.



It was quite interesting to be here during the winter season, since it looked very different from the usual pictures I see on the Internet. The lake was dead frozen, and the surroundings were beautifully bleak.


Because the lake was frozen, there was no boating activity. I was told that people used to ice skate on the lake, but the ice got thinner year after year.


I wandered off the path, and even got lost. I was separated from the group, hence I was able to take more pictures of the more desolate places. The actual Summer Palace was hardly visible from the lake area because of the weather.


But I still managed to capture some dramatic scenes. I tried to find my group and finally got reunited near the entrance of the palace.


After the tour, we had one of the best lunches of our trip. The restaurant was your regular tour stops, but the food was surprisingly good.


The food was more Shanghainese and Schezuan though. I was actually trying to think what the food of Beijing is called. We were served more spicy sitr fried dishes.


The first half of our day was spent well, and we took a leisure pace, since we were on a private tour. We were all looking forward to visiting the next landmark though, another imperial spectacle, the Forbidden Palace.

Comments

  1. virgo itineraryMay 8, 2011 at 6:11 AM

    i went to Beijing but I missed the summer palace.i was already tired and I went to Qianmen instead. I wish it was snowing when i went there.the effect when it snows is great like in your pics

    ReplyDelete

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