This past Sunday Beijing opened up 2 new subway lines and tested the Olympic line. I've been mainly using the subway to get around because it is the most convenient and up until recently it was free because of my Olympic Visa, but of course yesterday they just decided they didn't want to let me ride free anymore...grr.
Anyway, yesterday I decided I would utilize the new subway line to go Northwest of the city and check out the Summer Palace (Yi He Yuan) and the Old Summer Palace (Yuan Ming Yuan).
This is the preserved Summer Palace. It is where the Qing Emperor's wife lived because she preferred it over the Imperial Palace at the Forbidden City and I definitely don't blame her. It is a huge park now and you have to pay to get in. You can rent boats on the lake and there are lots of little mini museums in all the buildings. When I was walking around the lake, I met this Chinese man. He just randomly started talking to me, people do that sometimes here I think it's because they want to practice their English. This guy's english wasn't too hot, so we ended up speaking mostly in Chinese. Apparently he is a brain doctor, he lives in Beijing, and he has an 8 year old son. When asked why he wasn't at work (seeing as it is Monday and all) he just said he was taking a break. I was a bit skeptical about his answers and still don't know if all this is true. Well, we ended up spending about 3 hours wandering around the Summer Palace and he took on the role of my tour guide even though he said he had never been before. He was a very nice fellow, but I didn't know if I should just enjoy his kindness or be completely creeped out. After we climbed over this huge mountain, he bought me a water and then he was going to take me on the bus to show me where the Old Summer Palace is. That's when I decided to be too creeped out and basically ditched him. I'm sorry if this makes me a terrible person and gives Americans a bad image. But enough was enough and like a good American I went and sought refuge at a nearby McDonalds.
After a short recovery, I grabbed a taxi over to the Old Summer Palace.
When I first arrived I was a little freaked out that I would run into this dude and I really don't think I could have handled that! Luckily this park was huge and I kept getting lost, so I figured I was in the clear. For the first hour or so I had no idea where I was going, I knew there were supposed to be really cool ruins from the old palace, but I had no idea where they were and the map didn't help much. I was about ready to head home, but then I stumbled upon the old European ruins. This palace was designed by Europeans and built by local Chinese craftsmen and they ended up building gorgeous grounds like this mini labyrinth (it's much harder than it looks)
It is such a unique kind of architecture! It didn't look like every other old building here, so it was really refreshing.
That's all for now!
1 comment:
typo typo typo...i guess you're building some serious character. [insert chinese character vs. personality character joke.] i'm waiting for your english to start sounding more like engrish; can you work on that one for me? mwb
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