Summer Palace and very tired legs

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The day after our visit to Xi'an the boys and I went to visit the Summer Palace while Stephen got to rest his weary legs at work (he told me his knees siezed up on him after 3 hours of interview people). So after a long subway ride the boys and I arrived at a stop which was meant to be right outside the Summer Palace, I guess if you count circumnavigating the walls of the palace you could say it was outside the palace. We finally found the entrance and went inside - the looks on the boys faces said it all "Not more Temples/Halls - Painted wooded buildings", as lovely as I find them the boys are now very tired of them. So I draw their attention to the bronze statue they haven't seen yet, we take some photos and then move further into the palace grounds - which by the way are lovely. Once we get to the lake they start perking up when they see the paddle boats only for their moods to plummet again when I inform them that the boats cannot be hired until summer time.

We pushed on and headed off in the direction of the Marble Boat and the Long Corridor - you read about these things but are not prepared for what you about to see when you finally come across them - The Corridor for me was the highlight of the visit - It is Long - very, very long and magnificent every surface is painted and every painting is different - there are no two alike. They are so very well preserved. We were very excited to find a couple of paintings of Monkey, Tripitaka, Sandy and Pigsy - think back to when you were young and watched it on ABC every night at 6pm. Yep, we've introduced the story to the boys, Josh is reading the book - we will get the DVDs when we get home.

The setting of the palace on the lake forshore is stunning. The hills and the halls of various sizes are wonderful. The only dissapointing thing was the condition of the Marble Boat, while magnificent in it's design it is in such sad condition - you can picture how magnificent it once was but now it looks discarded, hidden away in a corner surrounded by hire boats.

After spending three and a half hours wandering the shore of the palace, lamenting that our legs were far to tired to climb the hill to look at the Tower of the Fragrance of the Buddha (what a magnificent name), taking photos of the soldiers, joking about Marco Polo (name of one of the bridges), we headed back home to prepare for our final sightseeing trip in Beijing.

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Photos

View of the Tower of the Fragrant Buddha across Lake Kunnan
We had a beautiful day for our visit to the summer palace, the walk along the lake was wonderful, however, our legs were not up to a visit to the temples on the hill

The Long Corridor
My favourite part of the Summer Palace. This corridor is LONG and full of wonderful paintings, You could spend hours wandering along this corrider.

The Marble Boat
The Marble Boat is pretty impressive, however is badly in need of restoration

Monkey Magic
We were very excited to find paintings of Monkey, Tripitaka, Sandy and Pigsy on the Long Corrider