中国 China 2010: Beijing: Day Two

Finally a sunny day with blue sky! It's starting to feel like summer; it was over 85 degrees today in Beijing. We visited the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City in a fun-filled, albeit tiring, day. The Summer Palace was in the morning, and it was the perfect place for a cool relaxing walk around a beautiful lake. The Palace was built for Empress Cixi for her 60th birthday. A nice birthday present if you ask me; the Summer Palace is huge. We walked around for about 2 hours and probably saw less than half of what there is to see. The center of the palace is a large man-made lake that really resembles West Lake. You can see for yourself with the pictures. We left around 11:30 to go to have lunch with my dad's old classmate at a really nice restaurant.

After lunch we went to the Forbidden City. First we went up the Tiananmen and took some pictures overlooking Tiananmen square. Then we continued to the center of the Forbidden City. It was filled with some of the most interesting history and culture I have ever experienced. The Forbidden City was used from the Ming Dynasty until the end of the Qing Dynasty and was where the Emperor, his family, and all the high-ranking political and military officials stayed. We had a tour guide explain the different details about the city, or else it we would have no idea what everything meant. For example, the emperor had special buildings for events, relaxation, and then living. There were places where military would stay, places where non-military officials would stay, and then places where the wives would stay (He would have numerous wives, and they would be ranked from highest, or the Empress, to the lowest). Again the Forbidden City is extremely large; after probably about 2.5 hours of walking around, we only saw 20% of the entire city. It looks like I'll have to come back in the future to see the rest of the palace and the city!

The Summer Palace: