The Summer Palace

        Tao was our tour guide to the (new) Summer Palace.  We took a long taxi ride to the other side of town and got dropped off at the back entrance.  It started off sunny cool, but ended rather windy and chilly by the time we reached the front entrance by the lake.  See the theme here?

Glad they put a non-stick strip on the marble steps.  As is most sights to see, main entrance fee and separate fee for other sections.  Always a trying time to get a taxi to pick us up.  The black car(personal cars acting as taxi wanna be.  You have to preset a price to a destination.  I've only been in two to go a short destination, never by myself!) wanted way too much, we know how much we paid to get there, around 80rmb~$12.50.   

The history:  The old Summer Palace called the ruins of Yuanmingyuan began in 1709and plundered in 1860.   I have been here before,  just looks like a bunch of Roman ruins to me, not much to see there.  The new Summer Palace began in 1750, with use of embezzled funds from the navy so that Empress Dowager Cixi could have a resort to spend the rest of her life in.  Opened to the public in 1924.

Beihai Park

We got a late start to our outing with the kids today.  It was quite chilly and windy.  We rode the bus for at least an hour to get to Beihai.  We arrived at 4, skipped a lot of climbing and walking on the island.  Ended up walking around the whole lake, because the ticket guy's map showed a shorter path to the 9 dragon screen.  Looking at other maps, we should've went the other way.  But the boys did great.  We left after 6pm and had to walk to find our bus stop.  When we got to the bus stop it was full of workers in their hardhats.  Luckily their stop was about 10-15 minutes down the line, so after they cleared the bus  we got seats for the rest of the long ride.  I was nervous we'd miss our stop in the dark.  My father-in-law wrote down the meaning of the stop name in English instead of how it's pronounced, this is interesting to him, but not so  helpful in deciphering where I was to get off at.  

We got home after 8 and finally had dinner.  Yikes, luckily the boys don't have school tomorrow!

The history:  Built from 916-1125 built upon a traditional Chinese legend of 3 mountains in the east,  thought to have magical power to give humans immortality.  Opened to the public in 1925.