Journal

Beijing’s Summer Palace, Forbidden City & Temple of Heaven – in 95 degrees! 23 June 2009

A whirlwind day, all while grinning and wondering if we would become grandparents, and checking my text messages about once an hour in anticipation… LOL!
long corridor
Liu picked us up at 8:30 am, and after a 30″ unscheduled stop at Olympic Village to see the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube, we spent about 4 hours wandering around the beautiful grounds of the Summer Palace, then stopped for tea in a traditional tea house, and noodles for lunch in a noodle house. Then still terribly hot, we just drove around Tian’anmen Square, but did spend several hours walking through most of the Forbidden City, finishing up with the Temple of Heaven.

WHEW – tons of walking, brain and eyeball beauty overload – what a day! To the left is ONE of the 200+ photos I took today…of the Summer Palace’s Long Corridor built for the Dowager Empress Cixi so she would not be exposed to sun getting from the dock to the palace. It is 728 meters long, winds around the lake, and has over 8,000 paintings of scenes from Chinese folklore!