Trip to the Summer Palace

Last weekend, Muir's boss Carl arrived in Beijing for a few days and on Sunday, the three of us ventured out to visit the Summer Palace.  The Summer Palace was the occasional residence of Beijing's emperors and empresses, from well, Wikipedia says 1750, but since different parts were built/incorporated at different times, it's hard for me to say exactly.

Anyway, the site is basically a very large, walled park interspersed with buildings, pavillions, gates, statues, etc.  The main geographic features of the Summer Palace are Kunming Lake and Longevity Hill.  We started at the North Gate of the Summer palace, and walked south to the top of Longevity Hill, and then descended the east side of the hill and continued walking south along Kunming Lake so that we could cross Seventeen-Arch Bridge and visit the South Lake Island.  There were lots of fun things to look at and the foot paths within the Summer Palace were fun to walk through.  It was kind of like trekking through unexplored wilderness, with lots of hills to climb and trees obscuring views of the outside world.  It was easy to imagine being in China a few hundred years ago.  Enough jibber jabber.  Here are the pictures!

Early morning sunlight

On the bridge over Suzhou Street, a cute canal with shops
on either side below the bridge

Striking a post in a round doorway

In front of the Tower of Buddhist Incense
which was recently renovated before the
2008 Olympics in Beijing

Decorative detail of the Tower of Buddhist Incense

View from the top of Longevity Hill looking down on
the most concentrated collection of buildings in the
Summer Palace, Kunming Lake, Seventeen-Arch Bridge, and
South Lake Island in the distance

Man practicing calligraphy using
a bucket of water and a long brush

Man preparing to fly a kite on Seventeen-Arch Bridge;
Tower of Buddhist Incense in the background