Beijing, China (Take II)

Asia » China
August 8th 2005

Published: August 26th 2005

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R Eldar

The long corridor

Also known as the "gallery". The Summer Palace.

Hi again,
My second visit to Beijing wasn't much different than the first one. Many arrangements of a big city, and a few thins to see that weren't that interesting... I just don't like big cities, now it's a fact.
Except for buying new sandals (my old Source finally had it), and new sunglasses (didn't have any for almost two months), I issued a new passport (finished almost all the pages on the old one, and it's also cool to have a passport that was issued in Beijing), and also tried another (lousy) Humus.
On the touristic side I went to the Summer Palace of the imperial court. It's basically a big park with a lake and many nice buildings and temples. There are funny names to the temples and the buildings, like "The Pagoda of Many Treasures", and "Tower of Dispelling the Clouds". There is also a big marble boat built by the Empress Dowager Cixi with all the naval budget, which led to the defeat against Japan later... The way there was an hour and a half on buses, and the place was full of Chinese tourists, if it wasn't obvious.
Another site was the Forbidden City, or

Tower of Dispelling the Clouds

The Summer Palace.

the Imperial Palace. This is right in the center of Beijing, and it's the place where the emperors lived. It's a huge place, with many palaces and temples, but most of it is reconstructed these days (probably because of the upcoming Olympic games). It is also impossible to enter the palaces, so all you see is the buildings and the vast courts where thousands of soldiers used to stand in front of the emperor, like you see in all the movies. Also, I think you can call it The City of Dragons, because there are dragons of all kinds decorating just about any corner. Not to talk about all the Chinese...
That night I went to the first movie I've seen in ages - Mr. & Mrs. Smith!
The next day was mostly shopping - bought some souvenirs and gifts (for those of you who are nice to me and stay in touch and send me nice emails).
The next day I visited a famous Tibetan temple called Yonghe Gong. Built at the 17th century and was a house of a Chinese prince. When the prince became the emperor and moved to the Forbidden City they made it a monastery.

Marble boat

The Summer Palace.

This is the place where they choose the Mongolian Living Buddha, and it's the first time I noticed the Mongolian writing in the Tibetan monasteries. There are also some nice statues of Buddhas having sex, and it is said that they used them to educate the emperor's children...
Right next to it there is a Confucius Temple, the third religion in China. It's more a museum than a temple, and it's actually more a philosophy than a religion, but then again - there is no point in arguing with Chinese people.
Later I did some more shopping, sent a huge package home, and left this city again, starting to head west...
Until then,
R.

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