Two Seconds at the Summer Palace

Ugh, I really should be making jello for dinner. But what am I doing? Blogging. That's so me.

Alright, the Summer Palace! The last stop for our first day of Beijing. So, no, I wasn't wearing the same shirt for seven days. All of this happened in one day!!

Kay. So the Summer Palace was built by an emperor named Qianlong. It's situated on a hill by a man-made lake. The hill is actually made from the earth moved to make the lake. It's north of the city and was basically a vacation home for the emperors. I guess it was much, much cooler there than in the Forbidden City. I can imagine. There are tons of trees and gardens at the Summer Palace, and basically zero trees and foliage in the Forbidden City. If I was the emperor, I would want to stay in the Summer Palace permanently, dude.

You can take a little boat across the lake, which is fun and really refreshing. Our boat looked exactly like this:

You can see, behind the boat, the hill made from the dug-out earth. It's called Longevity Hill. The building behind the boat on the left is the tallest one on the hill - it's called The Temple of Buddhist Virtue. It's where the emperor would pray on the 1st and 15th of each month. It's so weird to me that such a huge, gorgeous building would only be used twice a month. That's what I kept thinking of the Temple of Heaven - "All that work, for just visiting twice per year??"

Here's a closer view of the Temple of Buddhist Virtue:

This is called Happiness Longevity Hall - Emperor Qianlong's library:

This grouping of buildings is called the Court of Picture-Like Scenery:

I wish I knew what those buildings were for. Maybe for looking at the scenery?? :) Just a wild guess.

This is called the Autumn-Depicting House:

Again, no clue what it was for. Seriously, all of these pictures were taken from our boat, and we got out and got to see like two things and then had to get back on the boat.

This is called the Bronze Pavilion - it's made of mostly bronze and weighs 207 tons:

Do I know what the Bronze Pavilion is for? Nope.

Ah, now here is something I know a little about - it's called the Marble Boat. It's actually made of wood, but painted to look like marble:

However, it's not seaworthy - it's actually built onto a concrete pedestal and just sits there. Haha!

The lady that ordered the boat built was called Empress Dowager Cixi:

The Chinese call her The Dragon Lady, because she was soooo powerful. This woman amazes me so much, because she started out as a low-ranking concubine to an emperor named Xianfeng. BUT, she gained power when she bore the emperor's only son. Out of who knows how many kids. Remember - each emperor had thousands of concubines. And then that emperor died when her son was only six years old, so she became kind of his advisor.

Maybe rising in the ranks went to her head, because she looooooved her power. She actually used money earmarked to improve the Imperial Navy to expand and improve the Summer Palace. Our tour guide told us that she had 200 courses from which to choose for each meal. Holy moly. Just for her!!! This wasn't a meal for her and a bunch of courtiers. Just for her! Imagine all the food that was unused and thrown away!

Anyways, so that "marble" "boat" was built from those embezzled funds, among lots of other things. And I guess she liked to get on the "boat" and feel the coolness from the lake. I don't blame her. Summer in this part of China is a KILLER. I know from experience, dude.

And look! Another long corridor!!:

I love these. This one was even more ornate than the one at the Temple of Heaven. This was built so that Emperor Qianlong's mom could walk through the gardens protected from the elements. So funny. Get an umbrella, lady!

Ben wanted to snap a pic of the kids and I:

Gagey was sleeping. And Micah was being...Micah.

So, while Ben was posing us and taking pictures of us and trying to get Micah to smile, all of these tourists started gathering and taking pictures of us, too. I seriously felt like I was on the red carpet. It was flash, flash, flash, flash. It was really uncomfortable for me. Here I am, saying in my head, "Alllllrighty then....time to escape....":

Before long, our Nazi-like tour guide was screaming at us to get in line to get back on the boat to leave. The line was really long and very compact. Because of where we were in line, we missed the boat our tour guide wanted us to get on, so we got yelled at. :) By this time, I had HAD it:

The ride back across the lake was gorgeous, because the sun was setting. This pagoda is called Yu Feng Pagoda:

This is called the 17-arch bridge. It connects the Eastern edge of the lake to one of the man-made islands on the lake:

And of course there's a reason for 17 arches. From either side of the bridge, the architects wanted there to be nine arches to the middle of the bridge. And nine is a lucky number. So no matter what side of the bridge you're on, there are 9 arches to the middle arch. The middle arch is shared/claimed by both sides. I don't make this stuff up; I just tell you about it. :)

That night, when we got back to our hotel, I sent Ben to the silk market to pick up non-Chinese dinner for us and some more gifts for family and friends. I gave Gage some snacks and a drink and put him down for a very, very needed evening nap. And the other three kids and I gathered in the second hotel room on the bed and watched Harry Potter on HBO China. It was awesome. Ben brought back pizza, and we gorged ourselves. It tasted amazing.

And, a little factoid for ya - HBO in China is totally edited. Everything on TV, no matter the channel, is basically rated G. Which is kind of cool for a family like ours.