Summer Palace - Farewell Beijing

On Sunday morning we packed up to head for our Hong Kong home. Before going to the airport we had one last sight to see. The history behind the Summer Palace is incredibly interesting. It was a respite for the Emperors and the Dowager Empress once spent all of the naval budget on renovations and thus could not defend on the seas. That is a large part of the reason behind Britain leasing Hong Kong. The stories are numerous and I am hoping to do more reading on the subject in the future.

The Summer Palace sits on an extremely large lake. The entrance area is right by the water and there are no guard rails. It was fun posing for photos (take a little step back - ha ha). The gentleman in the photo just above had rigged a water calligraphy brush. He just kept writing messages on the stone and they would soon dry so he had a new canvas.


The most interesting feature of the Summer Palace is a corridor which runs for over 700 meters. The corridor was built so that the Emperor or Empress could enjoy the grounds in any kind of weather.

The insides of the corridor are lined with paintings. No two are the same. It is difficult to imagine when you see the length and the number of paintings. Some of them tell the stories of fables and others historical stories. Visitors these days find the corridor a respite from the heat of the city and like to just relax sitting on the railings.

As you walk along the water you can see a temple on an island in the middle of the lake. The day we were visiting there was a heavy mist so it was difficult to get a good photo.

After traversing half of the corridor, we arrived at the palace itself. 

With the mist it was difficult to photograph. It is very large and very beautiful. Thankfully Wanda told us we were not going to walk the second half of the corridor. Instead we took a dragon boat to the temple island.

Along the way we saw a great view of the Summer Palace and made a new friend as well.

The island housed a very interesting exhibit including photos of the Dowager Empress. There were some beautiful shady spots with lake breezes.

To leave the island we walked across the Bridge of Seventeen Arches. The railing of the bridge is lined with lion sculptures no two of which are alike.

After leaving the Summer Palace we stopped for a terrific lunch at an Indian restaurant (who knew?) and then headed for the airport. We saw so much in such a short period of time that we are still processing it. I know that Grandpa Henry would be so pleased that we had this opportunity to visit the land of his birth. 


One last item. On our first day of touring we saw a magpie. The Chinese feel that sighting a magpie is good luck. Each day we saw one and each day I tried to get a photo but couldn't...

...until our last.