Summer Palace

The first truly historic place that I visited was the Summer Palace, which I actually visited twice, first with my friend and colleague Craig, and then again the next day with two more friends and professors from Champlain. Susyn and Kathy. There was a little overlap, but it is so huge that in other ways the two trips were completely different. The Summer Palace was the place where the the emperors would go to get away from the chaos of the Forbidden City - essentially, it was the little weekend get away place, which sort of boggled the mind and prepared me to visit the enormity of the Forbidden City. You could, and I did, spend hours walking around the Summer Palace, which stretches around a huge lake. There is way too much try and explain in this brief blog - sitting here in the front room of the Goldenener Brunnen Hotel because the wifi is not picking up in my room. Probably my favorite part of the Summer Palace was the long corridor, which, as the name suggested, is a very long covered walkway that runs along the lake. There are literally hundreds of paintings along the Long Corridor, and Craig actually bought a book that explained all of them. I think I took dozens of pictures of them - some of them were historical and some were traditional Chinese landscape paintings and others were drawn from mythology and others were obviously influenced by modern European concepts (and thus really stood out). I also like going to the other side of the lake, which Susyn and Kathy and I did, to walk over the seven distinct bridges along the causeway - we also took a boat back across the lake. You can also walk to the top of the hill and visit a couple Buddhist temples, including the Temple of the Multitudinous Fragrances, which is the first of a whole series of beautifully named Chinese temples and buildings, especially when you get to the Forbidden City. You can buy, for only 10 yuan, these remarkably nice maps (good enough for framing) which give you some history. I would definitely go back again. The first day was mainly Craig and I on a forced march so we could get back and catch a couple late sessions at the conference, and second day was a more leisurely stroll with Susyn and Kathy, including some noodles in a little shop, which were prepared by the girls of the shop (who probably figured that an American was way too stupid to actually make their own noodles). Unfortunately, the stupid bloody blogspot site is not letting me download pictures at the moment so I guess they will have to wait.