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Published: August 8th 2010
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The Summer Palace
Dragon, for the Emperor Day 6
Today we got ready to go to the Summer Palace. Wake-up call was early as usual. When we entered the Summer Palace (it was about half an hour driving) it was very impressive to see. First thing we saw was a square with a lot of trees. Through the whole summer palace everything was green. A lot of trees and plants there, very soothing. Add in the typical (well it sounded typical to me) chinese music and it's perfect. First we saw 3 statues , a guardian, a dragon (symbol for emperor) and a phoenix (symbol for empress).
After that we went to the Garden of Harmonious Interest.
Weird name maybe but a truly beautiful place. It's quiet enough to just walk or sit in a corner and read a bit, or just enjoying the lilies and lotus flowers.
And it was beautiful. It was a huge lake filled with lillies and lotus plants, and really nice willows around it. It's hard to tell the feeling we had when we were there, but it was so...peaceful and serene. And we only had 20 short minutes to spend...
After the garden we went to see some other
things, like Shuzou-street. It looked like a mini-Venice, all kinds of little shops next to the water.
We also saw the Marble-boat. Also very beautiful to see. It was a pretty big boat too, with very nice decorations on the side.
After that we went to the Beijing Zoo. Because of the Giant Panda. And yes it was CUTE! a really big cuddly bear. We also saw a bit of the rest of the zoo, we got 45 minutes too look around. We saw the monkeys, bears, wolves and polarbear, and then we were supposed to get back but we were a little bit lost so it took a little longer.
Day 7
This was a good day. We went to see Mao very early in the morning. Or well we we're supposed too. It was very busy already. But because we (me and the biggest part of the group) still wanted to see it we stood in line for about 2 and a half hours. We walked over the Tienamen Square, the Square of Heavenly Peace...
This is Moa's picture above the gate of Heavenly Peace, which is also a gate to the
Forbidden City. All the people in front is the start of the line to the Mausoleum...
So finally after 2 1/2 hours we saw Mao. Of course we couldn't take any pictures, bags couldn't be taken into the Mausoleum. Not even a bottle of water. Really strict rules. And after that we went to a small shopping street.
It was very nice, a lot of those little stores which sold a lot of nice things. I bought a Jade necklace there. And when we were done there we went to a very very big shopping mall. When we came back to the hotel it was about 4 pm. We left at 8 am that morning.
We went to dinner in a nice little restaurant, (finally lasagna! no rice, pizza or mac donalds 😊) and after that we had a great karaoke-night, starting at 9 pm. It lasted till about 12 am, then someone got sick and went back, and about half an hour later most others went back to the hotel too. But we had fun, it was awesome, and some lost their voice a bit the day after 😉
Day 8
The last day
The Summer Palace
Phoenix, for the Empress in Beijing. That's when you realize that 9 days are over really fast. We had our last day off, so we went to the supermarket to buy a few things for our trip back home, and went shopping for the last souvenirs. We also went back to the big shopping mall, and got back home around 3. We had a dinner altogether (again). This time it was the so-called hotpot. It's from the Mongolians, they have a city called Hohhot, and that's where it comes from. Apparently anyway...
It tasted good ^_^. And it was fun to do. So we had a nice last night in Beijing. Went to bed early because we had to get up at 5.30 am the next day for our trip home.
Well that was it...hope you enjoyed reading it. I'd like to get comments so feel free to write something 😊
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