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Published: November 29th 2007
Uncy Mao and the Summer Palace
So, up early again today to meet up with a guy I met last night, Ryan, and head to see Uncy Mao. After seeing Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam a couple fo years ago I knew what to expect but it is still weird, and the way that the Chinese queue up and buy lowers is just bizarre!
After that we had to navigate our way to the Summer Palace so we turned to the trusty Lonely Planet book and followed their directions. No good. We hopped on the subway, which is in major need of an upgrade and you can see that it is slowly being done and will undoubtedly be done by the Olympics but at the moment it is just a bit old-school. Still very reliable, unless like us you get carried away and miss your stop and have to get off and go back again. But we got to where we needed to be and we then had to find a bus. No bus. Taxi!!!
We finally arrived at the Summer Palace and bumped into a German girl that Ryan knew, interstingly they both caught the ferry to
Shanghai from Osaka, Japan and then by coincidence they caught the same train to Beijing. So those two seem to have a habit of bumping into each other.
We entered the Summer Palace and I was immediately impressed, well worth the hassle of getting out there. It is such a huge place that in the end I think we only saw about one third of it. So we all wandered around the Summer Palace for the afternoon and ended up catching a bus back all the way to the part of Beijing where our hostel is, would have been nice to know this morning when we were going around in circles in the subway!
Not sure what's on the cards for tonight, definitely not as many beers as last night, 600ml bottle of Tsingtao is 3yuan = 0.45AUD, cheap. Dirt cheap. Very messy.
I finally added some photos for you all, they obviously don't capture the scale on which everything is built over here but it helps you understand what I am writing about.
Once again thanks for the comments and messages.
Back soon. Oh and if there are a few 'f's missing, its because
the key sticks, honest.
Matt out
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Peter Evans
non-member comment
Summer Palace et al
Great photos, but you point out they probably don't depict the scale of the place. Never did get the palace during the many trips to Beijing in the 80's and 90's. Watch out for that local brew; it creeps up you, especially after the 10th bottle. Best regards Peter Evans