Since we had a full day to explore before Cam and his friends arrived on Monday, we decided to go up north west of the city to check out the Summer Palace. This is something I really wanted to see because my favorite memories of travelling through Europe were the big palaces my parents and I visited in Austria and Germany. But this Palace turned out to be slightly different.
Enroute.
Much less luxurious than palaces I saw in Europe, the gates were surrounded by worn down abandoned looking alley ways and corridors. As we walked through the small streets, Mandy and I got a feel for what it would have been like in the days of hard communism. I could imagine small, dirty faced children in rags running around in the dirt and crawling through the mini doors that were hidden in the walls. It felt like how I'd imagine Russia to be – I don’t know why because I’ve never been to Russia - but that's what I thought of.
The Palace outskirts.
Inside the Palace walls the gates opened up to a vast space covered in forest, lakes, hills and trails. It was the “playground for the Emperor and his family during the summer months.” With the sun reflecting on my face through the big overgrown trees, I could imagine how beautiful it all would have been.
The Palace wall.
The lake must have stretched a few miles long, and as we walked along the shore side we could see hundreds of people out sliding around on the ice. As we made our way through the paths that took us into the forest and up the hillside, we stopped in at a number of old buildings and shelters.
The first was a small gift shop that used to be a prayer room. This lady was making beautiful artwork with paint and stiff brushes.
Mandy bought one as a souvenir – it is her name in artistic Chinese drawings.
After that we saw the sleeping quarters of the Emperor and his family. It was definitely different than what I expected. When I heard “Summer Palace” I immediately imagined a vast building with golden arches and expensive artifacts, but what we saw was a fairly small hollowed out courtyard with plainly decorated rooms around the outside. It turns out the true “palace” for the Emperor was actually the gardens and the magic they held. It’s nice to know the Emperor got outdoors and enjoyed the nice weather.
It was also nice to know the Emperor was no slouch. Those hilly trails definitely gave Mandy and I a nice workout.
When we made it to the top of the peak we got a lovely view of the mountains on one side and the entire city of Beijing in the distance on the other. Wow. This gave me my first real idea of just how huge this city it. We have nothing like that in Canada.
Mandy and I must have spent about four hours wandering the palace gardens and we didn’t even see half of it – that just gives you an idea of the sheer size.
Forest trails.
When we were done we decided to hop on the subway and head to the silk market where I bought a nice pink hair dryer to match our bed for CDN$4 (we both forgot to bring one) and Mandy bought a new lens for her camera (she is the photographer who we can all thank for the lovely photos I am putting on display here). We could have stayed longer but I really try to stay away from the bargaining scene after certain experiences in Hong Kong, Thailand, and Vietnam. I can’t seem to calm myself when I've got deals rolling in from all angles so I've made a deal with myself to just settle for regular pricing.
Instead we took off on our first real walk through downtown back in the direction of the hostel. This again was an experience. Whereas it would take only minutes to pass ten office buildings in a row in Toronto on foot, in Beijing, we were lucky to get by one building over the course of ten minutes. Standing there on the street made me realize just how large the buildings are. It was almost impossible for me to gauge distances because I wasn’t used to the sheer size of everything. For those who have been to Las Vegas, and have felt close to something because you could see it, but then realized just how far it actually was once you started walking, that was what it was like.
Another neat thing was that because everything is so big and spread out (wide streets etc.), the sounds from the traffic had nothing to bounce off which created an eerie silence. This made walking down one of the biggest busiest streets in the city an almost peaceful experience. Strange.
Once we got closer to the hostel we discovered the typical tourist street that unfortunately all cities feel like they must have. They all look the same but Mandy and I decided to deak off into a short alleyway that is famous for its exotic BBQ skewers.
They had starfish, scorpions, even seahorses! I was starving from all the walking which made me a little grumpy and unwilling to fill up on rare sea urchins and poisonous bugs, so I didn’t try anything…but from what I hear, it’s good.
That evening we relaxed and took in everything we had seen and prepared to meet Cam and his friends when they arrived at the hostel the next day.
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