Summer Palace

---

We went along to the Summer Palace today - situated in the western outskirts of Haidian District, the Summer Palace is 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from central Beijing.…we met Danny and the Danish girl Lisa at reception and ended up getting a taxi with them over to the Palace. Danny had a massive argument with the driver cause he switched off the meter when we were in the bank…can you imagine the problems trying to explain that to a Chinese taxi man?!

Constructed in the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234), during the succeeding reign of feudal emperors; it was extended continuously. By the time of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), it had become a luxurious royal garden providing royal families with rest and entertainment. Composed mainly of Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake, The Summer Palace occupies an area of 294 hectares (726.5 acres), three quarters of which is water.
We sat by the lake for a while just soaking in the atmosphere. While sitting at the lake, two women came over near us one waving a camera, so of course we thought they wanted our picture…oh God we can never get away from this…eh NO, they wanted us to get out of the way of their photo!! Bit humbling and indicative of how we looked! We did then try to get our picture taken in front of a tiger but had absolutely no success with that.
We then met the girls and went to the Lonely Planet’s No. 1 recommended restaurant in China. Of course getting there turned out to be another adventure as the taxi wouldn't take all of us so we had to split up - however, we only had the address written in Chinese on one bit of paper. Our taxi man didn't seem to have a breeze...kept wandering down random side streets and then spinning Uies. Miraculously though we all ended up outside the restaurant at the same time...
The restaurant is huge, but we were brought up three floors and then sat in a room of our own...it literally looked like someone's bedroom with a dining table chucked in the middle. The food was ab fab though, well worth going.

---