me with Vivien and Ruby at the Summer Palace

Today breakfast was pretty much the same as any other day. We got going to the Emperor’s Summer Palace around 9 AM. When we arrived, we were surrounded by ancient Chinese architecture. I am really impressed with the ancient architecture of the Chinese. It is very ornate and intricate in design and detail. The roof design is something I’m particularly intrigued by. A little fact about the Summer Palace: the original was burnt down by Anglo-French allied forces when the Chinese refused to open their ports to trade. It was rebuilt as close to the original design as possible, but the new palace compound is an estimated one fifth the size of the original compound. We walked down the street leading to the actual palace and all the buildings were shops selling souvenir stuff. The palace compound is built on the banks of a lake. Now, the interesting thing about this lake is that it was entirely hand dug. All of the workers digging this lake piled all the dirt into a mountain, on which stands the palace itself. The lake is huge and I was blown away to find out that people actually dug it. It was made to make the shape of a peach, which in ancient Chinese culture (I think it was during the Qing dynasty, but I can’t remember for sure) means long life, and this was to bless the emperor’s reign. In a cove of the lake was a big stone ship. This was built by Empress Dowager Cixi because she said it would last longer than a Chinese navy. Well, she was right. The English and French at the time were dominating the Chinese. To get to the palace entrance, we walked down what is called the Long Corridor, which is an open hallway with a roof over it built in the ancient architectural style, and all hand painted. Again, I’ll say how impressed I was to really try and get my point across. After the Long Corridor, we ascended the steps of the palace that was built on the artificial mountainside. The top of the palace had a really nice view overlooking the lake, and we could see ships ferrying people between the palace and an island in the middle of the lake where I am guessing the emperor would go to vacate from his vacation house. The view from the top of the palace would have been better, but it had been raining earlier and was still a little overcast, so visibility wasn’t as great as it could have been. Even so, I will still have that view in my memory for a long time to come. After we got down, we went around the lake to the only bridge that connected the mainland from the aforementioned island. The bridge became famous because it was very technologically advanced for the time it was built. It is built with 17 arches supporting it. The island itself was pretty small, but I’m sure it would be a perfect place to go to enjoy gardens or something. We ended up taking the ferry back to the mainland because it docked next to the stone ship where we entered the Summer Palace compound. We wandered around for a while in between all the buildings at the base of the mountain. There was a collection of art and pottery from various dynasties throughout China’s history. After leaving, we went to another hot pot style restaurant where you are given a pot of hot liquid (in this case it was water) and we cooked meat, vegetables, and seafood in the hot pot. The strange thing I ate today was duck blood. It was tofu with added duck blood. What did it taste like you ask? Well, kind of like blood. Just the same as if you licked blood off a cut on your arm. Anyway, we didn’t do anything after that except just hang out at the hotel. We have to be up early tomorrow to go to the Great Wall.