Blogs from Summer Palace, Beijing, China, Asia

Snow is very cold, makes surfaces slippery and has its own set of sounds. In December 2012, China experienced its coldest temperatures for 28 years. Jinhua, with a subtropical climate, receives light snow every few years, but this year was blanketed with 6 inches of snow. In parts of the country, houses and cities are set up for snow, with central heating and warmed public spaces. Other places are not. In my apartment, aka the icebox, the temperature in the kitchen was 4 degrees and wen... read more

The next day Unique Lee and I have decided to go to the Summer Palace. I invite Dom to join us and then Guy – a lovel 20 year old student from Leeds asks if he can tag along. Somewhere along the way - Derek Chang – a sweet 26 year old Canadian with Chinese heritage joins us and also invites along the two american tibetan nuns staying in our hostel and their two friends. S suddenly we hae four sixty somethingswith us as well. Unique Lee turns around and suddenly sees how many there are of us: "NO The group! - too big!!!" he's got a point - its going to be slow going navigating the subway. When we get inside the grounds we split up as Derek and the nuns pay for a tour ... read more

CHINA...Beijing...The Summer Palace...Walking on Water. When I visit Beijing...David & his wife Pauline are in town. David took Denise and I to the Summer Palace...special entry...different to other routes I have taken...old men swimming in parts of the lake not frozen...no way I'm crossing the ice this time...no way...so we sit in a tea house...just us...and David tells us his story. His father was an Admiral in the days of Mao...the Cultural Revolution. David often visited the Summer Palace as a kid...at night...hiding from the vicious guard dogs with his mates...areas out of bounds. As history shows...Mao turned those in favour...to those "Not in favour"...and when it was David's Dad's turn...David at age 17 was sent to a village in Inner Mongolia...for re-education. To break the spirits of the relocated for re-education...the local party boss had ... read more

Today was a relative breeze in terms of scheduling. We left Taishan at 9:00am following a simple continental buffet breakfast at The Four Points Hotel, Tai'an, in need of some deep tissue calf massage from walking down 7,000 steps in blizzard conditions the day before. I can hardly walk today, but managed the 470km top down drive to Beijing in 6 hours and 30 minutes. Yesterday was a freak winter day, but today I managed to add to my right arm and facial tan on what seemed like a perfect summer day. After checking in to the Aman at The Summer Palace at 4:00pm, the Aman staff led us to their "secret gate" to the Palace. Unfortunately although the gate was exclusively for Aman guests, once inside, we were once again amongst the whole populace of ... read more

We woke on our final day in Beijing excited that it would be our last. This meant we would be heading to the hot weather and friendly people that Thailand is known for! To be honest, other than our trip to the Great Wall and time spent with Joe, our experience in Beijing had been just okay. The people were far less friendly than we had expected, and coming from Vancouver, where the multiculturalism is something that we are extremely proud of and known for, it was quite a shock to see almost no people of different ethnicities in Beijing. Other than at the Great Wall, we could count on two hands the amount of Westerners/Europeans we saw, including the night market. This was just a shock to the system because everywhere else we have travelled ... read more