We hired our tour guide Lily for two days. Today we went to the Summer Palace, a Houtong Village tour and the Acrobat show.
The Summer Palace is where the royal family of China would go to escape the heat of the summer at the Forbidden City. The gate to enter the palace is a replica of The Forbidden City gate.
On both sides of the gate are lions, one is playing with a baby lion representing the female and one has his paw on a ball representing the male or the king.
The ball is the world, or China depending on where the lion is and the statue symbolizes that the king will rule China or that China will rule the world. In the U.S.A. you will frequently see this statue outside a Chinese restaurant.
The palace grounds are huge and beautiful here are some random photos we took.
There is a walkway that is 750 meters long and is hand painted with 10,000 pictures, it was built so that the royal family could enjoy the view of the lake during the rain without getting wet.
The lake is very large and is surrounded by the Summer Palace, very peaceful.
There are also a bunch of dragon boats, they do give rides in the summer but we were in China in March and there was still some ice on the water.
There is also a boat made of marble,Lily told us this boat represents the royal family and the water is the common people of China, it is the people who carry the country to its success.
There is always a place to get a snack or a drink in China, we got some hot ginger tea at this stall.
More Summer Palace grounds:
Caleb took a picture of Scott and I sitting on the bench where matches are made. Women come to this area to discuss their children and try to set them up for marriage, this will still happen today. I must say we have had a fabulous marriage so on the bench we sat.
There is a very formal very expensive restaurant at the Summer Palace, President Bush ate dinner with the royal family at this restaurant during the Olympic Games in China.
There are not many rooms on the Palace grounds open to the public but some were open for tourists to walk through.
As you leave the grounds there is a restaurant close to the palace that we enjoyed. Here are some street scenes right outside the palace gate.
After the Summer Palace we went to a Hutong village for a walk. Here are some random street scenes on our way to the village.
Hutong means well. The hutong villages are built in an area where they share a well, there is usually no plumbing inside the homes.
Here is the gate to the village that we toured.
and a map of the village:
When you first enter there are several businesses, the village was in a trendy part of town, it was 2:30 in the afternoon so we were pleased to see a coffee shop.
We all enjoyed a cup of coffee:
But you can have tea if you would rather
In fact you can buy a lot of items in the village shopping area, we did not buy this shirt but.. you could
Street scenes~
There are doors leading into each court yard and in the court yard there are usually 4 large rooms. Here is a peek into a court yard.
Lily told us that the North room is for the most senior member of the family because it gets the most sun, the South room is for the servants as it gets little to no sun, the East room is for the son because the sun rises in the east and your son is the hope for the future of your family the west room is for any other family members you may have.
Here is a door to the court yard.
There are two blue pegs on this door that is a middle class family the number of pegs indicates how wealthy the family is also there is no stoop at the bottom of this door is you are wealthy you have a stoop to keep out the rain. This door has two lion statues on drums this means that it is a military family.
This door has four blue pegs, this is a wealthy family.
Did we mention we really liked our tour guide Lily? Here she is:
If you go to Beijing let me know and we will give you her information.
One more door picture:
Here are some street scenes on the housing side of the village~
There are several modes of transport in the area:
In the evening we went to the Chinese Acrobat show the pictures will speak for themselves, it was cool, unbelievable and dangerous.
a close up of her on top of all those chairs
I think I could do this one:
That is if Scott can hold me up :)
How many ladies can you fit on a bike? If you are in China a lot of ladies fit on a bike~
If you have been to an amusement park you have probably seen the guy on the motorcycle inside the metal ball driving around and upside down, well in China they put SIX motorcycles in that ball!
Oh my goodness, I could hardly watch, it was amazing.
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