Beijing – Summer Palace

Got a late start to the day between sleeping in (because we were tired, and because Josh got a respiratory infection from the wonderful Beijing air), a leisurely breakfast, and taking care of important tasks like booking our hostel for Cairo. Booking ahead for accommodations has been really nice. In India, is was worthwhile to just walk around and bid the guesthouses against one another as there were always plenty of rooms and rarely was anything full. Everywhere else we've been, it doesn't seem to save any money, and places often do fill up. So back in Phucket (Thailand), we decided to try booking ahead each hostel from the place before, making sure to book places with free wi-fi so we'll be able to book the next place ahead. So far, this has been working out really well, and has done a lot to reduce stress when arriving at each new city.

Anyway, when we finally got out, we decided to go to the Summer Palace, since the day was already half gone. And it is the weekend. It took forever to get there because we did like Lonely Planet said and took the bus. Big mistake. The metro now goes there and is faster and easier (took it home).

From Beijing

Not surprisingly, the Summer Palace was a total zoo. A lot of the stuff to see is old artifacts inside buildings, seen through dirty windows with horrible glare, so you have to fight the crowds to get your turn to put your nose up to the glass. Ugh. We did that some, but what we saw was very much like stuff we've been seeing in museums and temples all over Asia, so it didn't feel very worthwhile.

From Beijing

We ended up walking all the way around the lake because it looked nice and got away from the crowds. Unfortunately it was also further than we realized and ended up being like 2 hours of walking with pretty unchanging views. Oh well. Other than being a lot of the same though, it was pretty nice. There were some crazy steep footbridges that impressed us!

From Beijing

From Beijing

When we got hungry we purchased some steamed buns stuffed with pork, and found them to be very good. Unlike the dim sum we got in Hong Kong, they were not soggy, and the dough was nice and thick and puffy. We've been struggling with food in China, between the language, not liking Chinese food that much, the weird ingredients (no, not so interested in ox penis or any part of a bull frog, thanks), and the spiciness, so it was pretty awesome to find something we liked so much, and finding it to be quite affordable. Western food is available, but at western restaurant prices.

When we got back to the main area, it was almost closing time, but we decided to hike to the top of the hill to see what kind of view it would provide. When we got there we found a really cool uniquely orange and green temple, pretty unlike anything else we've seen.

From Beijing

Beyond the temple, we got great views of the incense tower.

From Beijing

Then we ducked down what looked like a random side trail and found ourselves at the top of something that really felt like a proper palace complex, a feeling lacking in the rest of the area we'd been. We followed it down and couldn't quite believe we'd almost missed it!

From Beijing

We left through the North Gate and took the Metro home. At what should have been our last metro transfer (1 stop on a different line), we instead got off and walked the last kilometer looking for dinner. We found several more stuffed steamed bun sellers and a couple grocery-like stores, including one of each within like a block of our hostel. We'd walked around looking for stuff like this yesterday, in a couple different directions from our hostel, but evidently not in the right directions! Yay! Orange juice and more stuffed buns for dinner, cup-of-noodles for Josh's breakfast tomorrow, and cold non-stuffed steamed buns for Mary's breakfast. We'll see how they are with peanut butter!

From Beijing