Marble Boat, a little more Garlic and off to Lhasa

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This morning we decided to go to the summer palace, which is another China site impressive in size. The empress who had the a lot of the place originally built (before the fire) really threw a lot of the empire's money away by doing so. Someone said that instead of creating the Navy that she had funds for, she had the marble boat built. I'm not sure what the whole story is but there certainly is a enormous marble boat. The entire place is enormous surrounding a man-made lake. I couldn't imagine it being secluded with closed doors to regular people. The massive, beautiful location, paths and buildings and walkways... just for the royalty. Incredible. Much of it is also nociticbly symmetrical, great Feng Shui. Later after the weirdest popcicle of my life, we headed to the electronics market. Busy place. Lots of people trying to get your attention, as usual, but it gets really funny when they start clapping at you! When we got back i sat at the kitchen table for a while. The mom broke and strung a bean right in front of me, then pushed a bunch of them in my direction. She clearly took the opportunity to put me to work. She followed that with a whole thing of garlic. I peeled each piece... they eat so much garlic it's nearly unbearable. It was like a preview, i am now prepared to avoid much of it... though that proves impossible. OK garlic usually isn't a big deal, but when it's used in excess, as i've never before experienced it is overpowering. Not to mention it lingers. I'm sure i'd get used to it, but it's only been a few days. What else? Tonight we are off to Lhasa, on a 48hour train ride. Until then it's only a little packing and dinner.

Just a note... i have noticed the way that many Chinese people here take pictures is very funny. They do all kinds of crazy things, sprawl themsevles out, posed incredibly dramatically, etc. It's really fun to see.

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Photos

Summer Palace
This is the view of the lake the much of the palace surrounds, but not all of it. Try to imagine the size of it based on this picture!

Comments

[andrea steinert]

Take pictures
Take some pictures of the signs in china, I hear they are funny when translated to english.