Beijing - Day 3

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Summer Palace (Beijing)

Wikipedia Information

I could only hope to have a summer home as nice as this in my life. This place was truly beautiful..and was where the imperial court came to play and escape the summer heat. Most of the Palace is taken up by Kunming Lake, which we took a short boat ride on. However, the part that really did it for me was the Long Corridor, a 750+ meter long covered walkway that has over 14,000 paintings on the roof trusses. The Palace also has a marble stone boat (yes, it actually floats), which was built by the Empress Dowager. In order to maintain her power, the Empress imprisoned her stepson at the Palace for 10 years. Thankfully, my stepmother isn’t of the same ilk as the Empress.

A funny thing happened while we were waiting for our boat ride…a couple of gentlemen from another tour group (Vantage, where everyone has a name tag and the city they are from) were angry about something and started to push and shove one another. They were all 60+…but were arguing with vigor.

Speaking of bunches of older folks (or cotton heads…as one of the blog subscribers affectionately refers to them as), the AARP must have had a discount sale to China…as there were a lot more older folks in the other tour groups. The other tour groups also all seemed to have American tour guides. I have to say I preferred our little tour…with relatively younger people, and led by Chinese guides. Not to mention we were from a number of different countries, so we were able to share different cultural experiences.

Flight to Xi’an

It seems I was the only person that inquired about upgrading my domestic Chinese flights to First Class. When my fellow tour group members learned about this, they were a bit envious. There were a few boos and hisses (all in good nature) as I departed for my special First Class security line and lounge. The lounges aren’t quite as comfortable as those in America, but I stocked up on soda and snacks nonetheless. The seats were standard domestic First Class seats, and I took the opportunity to sample some white and red Chinese wines. The cartoon safety procedures which looked like they were produced back in the 70’s were a hoot.

Out of the group of 17 that arrived in Beijing, 15 continued on the Xi’an, with the other two (the Bradbury's) opting to go to Lhasa, Tibet.

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