I've heard a saying in NZ along the lines of "Spring has sprung". According to the calendar, Spring has been around these parts for about a month now and only now are the buds showing any sign of blooming, so fair to say that "Spring is springing", but certainly not fully sprung...
First visit today was the Summer Palace, a set of ornate buildings set beside a beautiful man-made lake. It was reasonably busy and today was a public holiday so busier than normal apparently. As we walked around, Ray, Laura and Betty told us all about the incredible history of the place and how it has been used by emperors and their eunuchs and concubines for centuries. It also has one of the longest single corridor of any building in the world, at 750m (although in saying this, I think it's more of a covered walkway, Ray). We finished this tour with a ferry trip across the lake which would've been great in the summer...
We stopped for lunch and then walked through Tianamen Square. I would agree with the guides this time, when they say it is the latest municipal square in the world. They like to say it can fit 1,000,000 Chinese people or 100,000 American people. LOL. There was a huge amount of people there and they were especially interested input tour group, and the locals took the opportunity to get some photos with us. In the main, they are friendly and like to say "hello", but our guides warned us to be careful of the pick-pockets...
From Tianamen Square, we walked through he South Gate of the Forbidden City- the main palace of the Emperor and used since around 1400. The scale is bewildering (approx 300 hectares!) and if it weren't for the thousands of other sightseers (mainly local), it would be quite awe-inspiring- there was just too many people to make it actually enjoyable. Our guide Ray remarked that he doesn't enjoy the Forbidden City too much anymore as he can't hear himself think!
We meandered through about 3km of smaller gates, bridges, squares, gardens and around buildings (all are now closed to the public for preservation) and eventually exited through the northern Divine Gate. It was all very impressive, especially the design of the buildings which defined their importance (such as roof structure and the number of animal adornments). We were pooped but running a little early- so filled in the time with (what else) a little shopping!!
After spending our way though another 90 minutes, we had a quick dinner before heading to the acrobatic show. We watched a stunning display of performers undertaking somewhat unbelievable jumps, somersaults, poses, etc with tight-ropes, bicycles, poles or their own bodies even. After watching a contortionist demonstrate a number of remarkable poses with trays of drinks, it occurred to me that she might make a rather nice coffee table...
And that was it for the day, and we returned to the hotel at 9pm. Tomorrow is the Great Wall!!
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