China: Posing at the Palace; 04.26.09

Yesterday (Saturday 04.25.06) we took a tour of the Summer Palace. We decided to join a tour group from the China Cultural Center so that we could learn about all the places we would be seeing (and be able to understand). We met the group at a dock North of where we live where we began the tour in the little boats. The tour was full of all sorts of people from the Swiss to the Irish. We first stopped at The True Awakening Temple on the side of the river where we toured the statues which marked your status once you die (bigger the better). We saw some amazing Gingko trees that were 600 years old (or so we were told). There were originally 6 temples but they burned down and only 1 now exists. It was very interesting. We got Greg to take a quick picture with one of the statues. Nicole's comment was "you guys are going to be cursed" but then it turned out to be the best picture of the day.

Next on the tour was a Bamboo Garden. It was pretty cool. We talked about this park being our "Central Park" to escape the city. We saw some pretty sweet areas. There was an area overlooking the water where people come to practice their instruments, another where they have amatuer singers, and an area for exercising including all types of equipment. We swore there were some chinese gymnast out there from the 50's showing off their stuff. There wasn't as much bamboo as I expected, but it was still pretty cool.

We walked back to the boats to head to the Summer Palace but before we got on the boat we saw a Buddhist Monk with others throwing fish back into the river (which was bought from the grocery - Save the Fish). We were off to the Summer Palace after eating a little PB&J on the boat. The Palace was pretty cool. It was WAY too crowded, and it was a little hard keeping up with the tour group (but by this time there were only 12 of us left). But we were happy we did it b/c it was a stress free day and we didn't have to get worried about being lost (not sure about doing any other guided tours though). Once we got to the top of the Summer Palace, our tour guide decided she wanted to sing Happy Birthday to Nicole. It was pretty awesome. I was expecting a Chinese Happy Birthday, but it was in English. The view from the top of the Palace was pretty cool. You could see all of old China (summer palace) with the new city of Beijing in the background.

It was a perfect day for pictures and such b/c it was a blue sky, though it has been pretty windy lately. We all pretty much passed out on the bus ride home until we heard an extreme rear end collision on the ring road right beside us (surprised I'm just now seeing my first wreck here). All in all, it was a successful tour day, and we can mark another place off our list.

The Crew's Chinese Pose