Summer Palace

The Summer Palace is located in northwest suburban Beijing and is the largest and most complete imperial garden existing in China. It was first built in the 12th century as an imperial palace. It was a gorgeous day yet again in Beijing and Joey and I decided that we had to visit the Palace, as it was one of the few places we had yet to go. 

The Summer Palace features hilly walkways and a lot of water scenery. It is situated on The Kunming Lake, which makes up four-fifths of the royal park. There is the Long Corridor running east-west along the lake as well as the Pavilion of the Fragrance of Buddha, the Sea of Wisdom, and the Hall of Dispelling the Clouds and Suzhou Street standing south to north on the Longevity Hill are the major scenic spots. The Pavilion of the Fragrance of Buddha which stands 41 meters high, is decorated with glazed tiles. The Marble Boat at the western end of the Long Corridor is a noted structure on water. Built in 1755, is made completely out of marble.

We arrived via subway at the Bagou station and hailed a cab to the South entrance of the Summer Palace.  The cabbie dropped us off and we were on our way.  We entered the gate and found a ticket office to buy tickets for the boat that would take us across Kunming Lake and to the Summer Palace.  The ticket was 10 RMB, and was a one way ticket, which unbeknownst to us would cause issues a little later in the day.  We boarded the dragon boat and were on our way.  You could see the Summer Palace directly in front of us to the North.  To the South was the seventeen arches bridge which connected the mainland to the island.  Our boat arrived and we de-boarded and began walking along the The Long Corridor.  It was such a nice day out, I think everyone had the same idea that Joey and I had.  TO come and spend time in the park on such a wonderful, pleasant Beijing day. 

As I walked The Long Corridor I noticed that it is richly decorated with paintings on the beams and the ceiling. In total, I learned that there are more than 14,000 paintings, which depict episodes from different Chinese classical literature, folk tales, both historical and legendary figures, and famous Chinese buildings and landscapes along with flowers, birds, fish, and insects. In each of the four pavilions, there are two major paintings over the two doorways on the eastern and western sides.

Joey and I turned left at the next gate and paid another small fee for admittance to Longevity HIll. We began our ascent up the steep and narrow stairs towards the Tower of the Fragrance, the highest point on Longevity HIll. Originally built during the reign of Emperor Qianlong and burned down by the Anglo-French Allied Forces in 1860, it was rebuilt in its original style during Emperor Guangxu’s reign (1875-1908). We stopped and took photos along the way of different points of the city, the lake, the seventeen arches bridge.  Also, we just needed a rest from all the stairs we had climbed, talk about a natural stair master workout. All along the way we noticed the intricate detail and precision that everything had been constructed with. Some of the buildings had clearly been renovated more recently, and a few were still in progress.  The difference was vast, and noticeable. After wandering around the Tower of Frangrance we continued on to the next section of the Hill, a section which became my favorite area of the entire park.  We actually sort of stumbled across it without realizing where we were going.  

An area known as the Sea of Wisdom Temple featured an arch-shaped structure built with bricks and stones without the support of a single beam or pillar . Constructed in the reign of Emperor Qianlong, the hall’s roof and murals were finished with colored glaze and decorated with statuettes of the Infinite Longevity Buddha. These along with the statue of Buddha inside the temple are all relics from the reign of Emperor Qianlong. The characters inscribed on both sides of the decorated stone archway form the text of a Buddhist hymn which says: “The Realm of Popular Fragrance, the forests of god; the seas of wisdom and the auspicious clouds.”

We continued on to the other side of the HIll and were greeted with the sight of several more layers of the Palace.  There were towers, and stairs and rock, all situated on the backside of the hill.  We navigated our way down to the plaza so that we could take in the Palace in all of it's splendor.   After looking around for a bit we decided to head back over the top of the hill, which of course meant more stairs to climb.  I told you, it was an incredible leg workout that day.  Back on the other side of the hill we found more areas to explore.  We stumbled across a lake with large lilly pads, and walkways crossing the lake in a maze like formation.  There was a musician playing a traditional Chinese song in the background.  We walked the circumference of the lake and continued back towards the main Long Corridor.  At this point it was around 4:45 p.m. and we were still under the impression that we could purchase another ticket and ride the boat back across the lake. We could not find any ticket offices that were open at this point, and soon we learned that they stopped running at 4 p.m.   That meant walking all the way around the lake.  It was doable, but remember we had been walking and climbing all day long.  After about a 30 minute walk we were back on the other side of the lake and decided that since we were there we should wander out over the seventeen arches bridge and onto the island.  On the bridge there were four different men who were flying colorful Kites.  I was amazed at how far up in the air the Kites were. I tried my best to take a picture that would display this to you.  It really was amazing.   After crossing the bridge we headed to the back side of the island to take in the sunset over the mountains.  It was so beautiful out there.  It really was a wonderful place and one of my favorite days spent in Beijing.