Asia Adventure 2012: Beijing

The Summer Palace, built in 1750, covers 2.9 square kms, ¾ of which is water (Kunming Lake). At the entranceway sits the Stone of the God of Longevity which is shaped like him, hence the name. We walked past the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity into the lakefront area, where we walked out to a pavilion to get some good footage of the lake. In the distance we could see Longevity Hill with several buildings nicely lined up; the Cloud-Dispelling Hall, the Temple of Buddhist Virtue, and the Sea of Wisdom Temple. But before we got there, we strolled through the Long Corridor, a covered walkway, 728 metres (2,238 feet) long that ends up at Longevity Hill. What an amazing corridor! Built to protect against sun and inclement weather (umbrellas being so passé), it is the longest decorated corridor in the world with over 14,000 traditional Chinese paintings throughout. The paintings need re-touching every dozen or so years. Each pavilion along the corridor symbolizes the four seasons.

There is a really beautiful gateway at the bottom of the Longevity Hill buildings all lined up nicely on the hill. But we only toured the Pavilion of Buddhist Incense before heading towards the marble boat, canals and lotus ponds which were just a month away from being in full bloom.

Although Greg had visited Peking University (founded in 1898 and covering 274 hectares of land), it was on our inflexible itinerary. It seems that Shu had to ensure that each itinerary item was covered or risk being in trouble with her boss. So if you plan on touring Beijing, be sure to demand flexibility into the tour, so the bosses can adjust their expectations. After a while, the lack of flexibility made it feel like the tours were work not pleasure. For instance, if you want to spend more time on the Great Wall and less on a university you’ve already visited, then so be it, wouldn’t you say? Plus we really did not want to visit the Peking University museum, but she was determined that we had to visit so she could report to her boss. But luck being on our side, the museum was closed for renovations, so we got to spend more time watching the soccer tryouts. This university is filled with old buildings and new; very representative of Beijing itself. Peking University was influential in the birth of several significant events; China's New Culture Movement, May Fourth Movement, the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989 among others. Another lucky thing was that Greg was able to take pictures of the mobile lab since he forgot to do so during his previous visit.

We had lunch at the Guo Lin Restaurant where we had some Peking Duck and were introduced to Fried Milk, plus I had a large seaweed salad. Of course, the table was jammed packed with many other things, but, these were the highlights.

Next stop was to Xinhua University, established in 1911, and located very close to Peking University. It takes pride in being the national center for training engineers and scientists with both professional proficiency and personal integrity.

Beijing Zoo covers 219 acres of land, lakes, and ponds and is famous for its collection of rare animals, in particular the Giant Panda. We were getting pretty tired by this point, so we opted to make the Panda exhibit the sole objective of our visit. It was difficult to get an opportunity to take pictures with all the visitors packed in like sardines trying to accomplish the same objective, but when in Beijing, get with the program and nudge your way in, especially when you are taller than most!

Tonight we watched the original Jaws movie. Glad we didn’t see it while visiting the Great Barrier Reef!